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THE 

-J. 

Teacher in Literature 

(SECOND SERIES) 

AS PORTRAYED IN THE WRITINGS OF 

English and American Authors 

WITH 

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND CHARACTERIZATION 
OF EACH AUTHOR 

AND AN INTRODUCTION BY 

FLORUS A. BARBOUR, A.B. 

Professor English Language and Literature 
Michigan State Normal School 




CHICAGO NEW YORK 

The Werner Company 



% 






Copyright, 1894, by THE WERNER COMPANY 



TEACHER IN LITERATURE "J SEa. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION, BY FLORUS A. BARBOUR, 
ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF, , 
Introductory Sketch, 

1. The Dominie, 

2. How I Became a Dominie, 

3. Difficulties and Vexations of the Domini 

4. Dangers of the Dominie, 

5. The Work of the Dominie, 

6. Day-Dreams of the Dominie, 

7. On Other Dominies, . 

8. Recollections of a Dominie, 

9. Lion, or Chastisements, 
10. Disciplinarians,. 

The True Teacher, 
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, . 

Biographical Sketch, 

The Village Schoolmaster, 

Characterization, 
HENRY KIRKE WHITE, 

Biographical Sketch, 

The Village Schoolmistress, 

Characterization, 
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 

Biographical Sketch, 

The Student-Teacher, 

Characterization, 
THOMAS CARLYLE, 

Biographical Sketch, 

Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh : 

1. Genesis (his infancy), 

2. Idyllic (his childhood), 

3. Pedagogy (his youth), 
Characterization, 

DONALD G. MITCHELL, 
Biographical Sketch, 
School Dreams, . 
Characterization, 



5-10 
11-98 
11-12 
13-17 
18-25 
25-35 
35-39 
40-45 
45-49 
49-59 
60-71 
71-80 
80-97 
98 
99-101 
99 

99-100 
100-101 
101-103 
101-102 
102-103 
103 

104-106 
104 

104-105 
106 

107-138 
107-108 
109-138 
109-115 
116-123 
124-138 
138 

139-146 
139 

139-145 
146 



(3) 



4 CONTENTS. 

GEORGE CRABBE, 147-160 

Biographical Sketch, 147 

Borough Schools, 148-159 

Characterization, 159-160 

WILLIAM HOWITT, 161-172 

Biographical Sketch, 161 

The Country Schoolmaster, 161-171 

Characterization, 171-172 

HUGH MILLER, 173-217 

Biographical Sketch, 173-174 

Self-Education, 174-216 

Characterization, 216-217 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, . . . . . . 218-245 

Biographical Sketch, 218-219 

Topsy's Education — Miss Ophelia, Teacher, . . 219-244 

Characterization, 244-245 

CHARLES DICKENS, 246-299 

Biographical Sketch, 246-247 

M'Choakumchild's School, 247-287 

Old Ciieeseman's School, 288-298 

Characterization, 298-299 

SIR WALTER SCOTT, 300-350 

Biographical Sketch, 300-301 

Dominie Sampson, 301-348 

Characterization, 348-350 

THOMAS HOOD, 351-366 

Biographical Sketch, 351 

The Irish Schoolmaster, 352-361 

Clapham Academy, 361-366 

Characterization, 366 

FREDERICK MARRYAT (Captain), 367-387 

Biographical Sketch, 367 

The Charity School 367-387 

Characterization, 387 

D'ARCY W. THOMPSON, 388-4 

Biographical Sketch, 388 

School Memories, 388-415 

Characterization, 415 

ROBERT SOUTHEY, 416-436 

Biographical Sketch, 416-417 

The Schoolmaster of Ingleton, 417-435 

Characterization, 435 

EXPLANATORY NOTES, 437-440 

TOPICAL SUGGESTIONS, 441-448 



INTRODUCTIOlSr. 



Several years ago, the President of one of our largest univer- 
sities was called upon to recommend some senior student to the 
Principalship of an important High School. No acceptable 
young man could be found. "Our best students, this year," 
remarked the President, "will study law, or medicine, or enter 
upon some business pursuit." 

About the same time, Judge Cooley, of Michigan, called the 
attention of teachers to the danger to our national life arising 
from the drawing off of our young men from the public instruc- 
tion of the young. "Teaching lacks the professional spirit," 
was his thought. Too many young men make it merely a step- 
ping-stone to some other calling. It is a convenient way of 
replenishing the thin purse, and bridging the gap between college 
and life. It has been wanting, therefore, in virility, in vigor, in 
moral tone, and in progressive enthusiasm. And herein lies a 
national danger. 

That was a pertinent question which the editor of one of our 
largest city newspapers asked during the summer strikes of 
1894: "What are our public schools doing?" The pressing 
need of the nation to-day is for young men and women to stand 
in the class-rooms of our public schools, a loyal army, sowing 
the seeds of patriotism in the hearts of our future citizens. In 
our heterogeneous population, we must look largely to them, 
and we have a right to look to them, to plant in the hearts of 
our American children a pride in our history, a love for our 
institutions and a reverence for civil law and order. And this 
national need, this peculiar opportunity of patriotic service, 
gives at once an added dignity to the profession of teaching, and 
brings its usefulness into comparison with that of any other calling. 

In January, 1893, the writer had the good fortune to hear the 
New Year's sermon of Rev. Charles K. Parkhurst, of New York 
City. In the course of his address, the eloquent Divine took oc- 
casion to give his definition of preaching. "A man may attend 

(5) 



6 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Union Theological Seminary three years," he said, "and not be 
able to preach; yes, he may even attend Princeton three years 
and then not be able to preach. What is preaching but hearing 
the voice of God and giving it utterance? And if I hear the voice 
of God and give it utterance, whose business is it but mine and 
God\s?'^ exclaimed this fearless warrior for righteousness. 

Having chosen the profession of teaching as a life-work, and 
thrilling under the magnetic eloquence of the great preacher, we 
felt the need of placing beside the sentiment just uttered, a cor- 
respondingly large and inspiring definition of teaching. 

May not a man attend all the universities and normal schools 
of the country, and then not be able to teach? What is teach- 
ing but to catch the spirit of the Master-teacher, and then to 
multiply its beneficent influences in the hearts of our Youth? 

The parallel is not simply a bit of fanciful Rhetoric. The pro- 
fessions of preaching and teaching are to-day intimately associ- 
ated. With ever-growing earnestness and liberality of thought, 
both are searching for the truth that maketh free. Both seek 
to interpret God to man, and in like manner need to hear the 
voice of God. They are the wisest teachers, even of Mathematics 
and Science, who see in the exact laws discovered, a manifesta- 
tion of an infinite intelligence, and who reverently seek to inter- 
pret those laws to the unfolding minds of youth. They are 
certainly the safest and most inspiring teachers of history and 
literature, who, in the life and thought of every people, " doubt 
not that thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs," and who, 
with the prophetic eye of the poet, look toward that 

"One far-off divine event, 
To which the whole creation moves." 

Can anything be of greater importance for the young men and 
women of our normal schools and colleges, than thus to elevate 
and dignify the profession of teaching? And, indeed, this elevat- 
ing and dignifying is steadily going on in the public mind. Every 
educator must be encouraged to note the new meaning which 
the word pedagogue is taking on. It is no longer a term of dis- 
paragement. Within twent^^-five years our leading universities 
have established chairs of pedagogy. There are certain princi- 
ples, it would seem, underlying proper instruction of the human 
mind. The education of the young is an ever-growing Science, 
and the teacher himself, even the common-school teacher, a dis- 
coverer, an investigator; not a rut-traveling practitioner of 
estabhshed rules. His laboratory is at hand day by day. It is 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

found wherever children are gathered together. He is interested 
in all the activity of their daily life; he works his way sympa- 
thetically down into their actual thoughts and feelings; he is 
an observing student of the development of their mental life; 
and day by day there may come to him the joy of the discoverer, 
of the investigator. If he be a slavish follower of methods laid 
dow^n by any institution of learning, he has not caught the 
spirit of modern pedagogy. The occupant of the professorial 
chair may advance his theories, but they are given scientific 
value only as they are verified or modified in the classroom. 

Thus it happens that the primary teacher is the natural as- 
sistant of the university professor. She observes for him, fur- 
nishes him data; and her high service is duly appreciated. The 
Professor of Physiology in the University of Jena, Germany, 
wishes to combat the theory that the logical activity of the child 
is dependent upon verbal language. He believes that without 
any learning of words whatever, many concepts are plainly ex- 
pressed and logically combined with one another; in a word, 
that the ability to speak did not generate the intellect. How 
shall the learned professor prove his theory? By setting men 
and women at work, all over Germany, watching with intense 
interest the unfolding mental life of infants. 

What a high tribute our American critics are fond of paying 
to the genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne! ''What a keen insight 
into the emotions of the human heart, into the lashings of the 
human conscience," say they. Yes, and perhaps the most note- 
worthy characteristic of Hawthorne to be observed in reading 
his life, by his son, is the father's habit of romping with his 
children, and of sitting in the home to watch their free and spon- 
taneous play. Where many a parent would have checked and 
reproved, Hawthorne allowed freedom and observed. Pitiful, 
indeed, the contrast between the homes of Thomas Gradgrind 
and Julian Hawthorne. 

And in reading the life of Hawthorne, to note this habit of 
mind of the man who, in all American Literature, has expressed 
the profoundest thought in the simplest language,— to note his 
habit of mind, and to carry it over and connect it with the daily 
instruction of the young, this is to lay the genius of Hawthorne 
under contribution to modern education. 

In connection with this thought, we are led to a special consid- 
eration of the title: "The Teacher in Literature." What is its 
exact significance? It is the picture of the teacher in England and 
America, running over some one hundred years, as portrayed by,. 



8 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

analyzed by, criticised by, discerning spirits, men of clear vision. 
Would you see your profession as master-minds have seen it in 
various predecessors? Would you get some fresh thought upon 
the history of education? Take a glance at the pictures of the peda- 
gogues of a hundred years, reflected from the pages of classical 
literature. Who shall read Robert Moncrieff's beautiful dedica- 
tion of himself to the life-work of a schoolmaster, without be- 
ing inspired to nobler effort thereby? What toiler along the 
way shall not gather new hope in the face of obstacles, at the 
simple story of the self-made Scotchman, Hugh Miller? Unac- 
quainted with halls of classical learning, to be sure, but master 
of vivid description, shedding from his pen a limpid, narrative 
English, and giving us the hint of its acquirement in a single sen- 
tence: " I quitted the dame's school at theend of the first twelve- 
month, after mastering that grand acquirement of my life, the 
art of holding converse with books.''' 

Amid such companionship, also, one catches a whiff of New 
England air, and of the old New England spirit, from Whittier's 
familiar "master of the district school," who had 

"Gained the i^ower to pay, 
His cheerful, self-reliant way." 

Or on the side of light humor, what better relaxation than a 
hearty laugh over Howitt's unique and pedantic letter of the 
schoolmaster in love. 

And what pictures of boyhood's life; boyish fears and hopes, 
doubts and aspirations, rudeness and generosity, indignation 
over unjust treatment, and gratitude for kindness! Old memo- 
ries of one's own boyhood come rushing back again, and his 
sympathy with the boys across the sea is quickened into that 
largeness and universality which makes the world kin. Let not 
the pedagogue whose hair has grown gray in the service, despise 
the psychologic value of these pictures of boyhood from our Eng- 
lish and Scotch schoolmasters. 

But as we have looked the volume through, more and more 
have there arisen in our thought that large army of district and 
public-school teachers, whose daily routine of duty is brain- 
wearying and nerve-destroying far beyond the domestic cares 
of the home. They need to learn how to rest, how daily to se- 
cure a quiet hour of refreshment and repose, how to draw from 
nature and from life and from literature, renewed inspiration 
and enthusiasm. 

Let the bundle of papers be left at the schoolroom door upon 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

many a weary afternoon, and a stroll be taken through the park, 
or better still through the fields in search of wild flowers in their 
season. 

"Ono impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can." 

But along side this love of nature and observation of life, 
the genuine teacher must ever place the inspiration to be drawn 
from literature. What has the teacher to do with literature, or 
literature to do with the teacher? Much every way! What is 
literature? "The thought of thinking souls," "a criticism on 
life," "the books where moral truth and human passion are 
touched with a certain largeness, sanity, and attraction of 
form." The daily problem of the teacher is how best to fertilize 
and cultivate the human mind. Can it be possible that he, him- 
self, needs not to hold communion with the large thoughts of 
thinking souls, or to look upon those pictures of moral truth and 
human passion that have received the finishing touches of mas- 
ter-hands? We must not yield this high privilege to the univer- 
sity professor exclusively. Every common-school teacher owes 
it to himself, or to herself, to provide the snug little room with 
the cheerful fire, and the lamplight shining over the small library 
growing year by year by a few additional volumes, and bringing 
every evening afresh the blessed solitude of the society of master- 
minds. And this snug little room, and this quiet dailj^ hour of 
communion with great thoughts, shall send the teacher back to 
schoolroom tasks with a countenance lighted up with nobler 
aspirations, with an intellect alert with keener observation, and 
with a heart warmer with compassion for all human infirmity. 

But perhaps the most inspiring thought for the teacher of 
to-day in connection with literature, is the enlarged opportunity 
which our schools now afford of directing the reading of the 
young. Within the past fifteen years a revolution has taken 
place in just this respect. The old-fashioned reading-book, with 
its short and disconnected specimens of prose and poetry, is giv- 
ing way to carefully graded selections of the best literature. 
Better still, circulating libraries of juvenile books are being estab- 
lished in our district schools, and in the different grades of our 
public schools. To direct the reading of the young, is to lay a 
moulding hand upon the plastic mind, to shape it almost at will. 
Never before, as now, has the teacher needed to be familiar with 



10 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

lists of books, history, fiction, biography, travels, and general 
literature, — all adapted to the different grades of our public 
schools. 

Fortunately, also, the service does not end with simply furnish- 
ing a list of books. One of the highest compliments we have 
recently heard paid to any teacher was the statement, a few days 
since, that MissP — .told the story of "Evangeline" with such gen- 
tle voice, such sweet modesty, such sympathetic entrance into its 
pathos and its beauty, that not only the children but the visit- 
ors were affected to tears. The cultivation of a literary taste is 
a matter of slow individual growth, to be sure, but quite apart 
from selecting lists of books, such a teacher as we have just de- 
scribed may render much and valuable assistance in this almost 
imperceptible growth. Literature cannot be taught, say our 
psychologists; no, but in the special sense referred to, one may 
be a teacher in literature, if not of literature. 

With advanced classes, particularly, we believe that in associ- 
ation and communion over what is noblest and sweetest on the 
written page, there is to both teacher and students a strength- 
ening of intellectual grasp, and a heightening and quickening of 
the mental and emotional faculties. Free interplay of thought 
and emotion leads to the fullest appreciation of the power and of 
the finer and more evasive beauties of literature. Cannot the 
teacher who, for years may have felt the power and strength of 
good books interweaving themselves with every fiber of his life; 
who has begun to feel, perhaps, what Bishop Hall meant when he 
said : " What a heaven lives a scholar in ! " cannot he impart to 
his class something of his own interest and enthusiasm? May 
he not possiblj^, indeed, generate a love and a power of discrim- 
ination which would never have been born without his aid? Im- 
portant it is, therefore, that he be a reader not simply of words, 
words, words, but that he catch the very tones of the voice of 
the great masters. 

In just this connection, it seems to us a happy conception of 
the publishers to furnish valuable pedagogical reading from the 
best literature. One ma^^ get style, a cultivation of the literary 
sense, and good pedagogy together. "Our poets are our best 
theologians," remarked Phillips Brooks, shortly before his death. 
May it not be equally true that our leading men of letters are 
our best psychologists? 

Florus a. Barbour. 

Michigan State Normal School, 
January 2, 1895. 



The Teacher m Literature. 



SECOND SERIES. 
ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 

("AscoTT R. Hope." ) 

That definite kuowledge of the life of a living author, who has writ;- 
ten and published under fifty-six separate titles, should be difficult to 
obtain, seems strange. Such, however, is the fact with regard to this 
author, beyond what may be gleaned from the selections printed here- 
with, and from another of his interesting works known as "Master John 
Bull," where a brief biography of his early school life appears. He tells 
us he chose to be a schoolmaster and soon became an author, publishing^ 
all his books under the pseudonym above. Most of his publications 
appeared between the years of 1865 and 1888. We quote the following 
from the preface of "Master John Bull," which not only represents his 
motive for writing it, but sets forth as well the reasons for writing the 
two books from which we make our generous selections : 

"This preface is particularlj' addressed to schoolmasters and other 
persons concerned in education, who may hereby learn that my book is 
not only to be distinguished by elegance and amenity of manner, but is 
to contain much valuable matter intended for their instruction. 

" I have entitled this 'A Holiday Book for Schoolmasters,' and if they 
are disgusted to find that it is proposed therein to teach them some 
important lessons, I maintain that my device is justified by their own 
code of morality. Do not they and the like of them tamper with the 
imaginations of our children, deceiving them with all sorts of lectures in 
the guise of romances and picture-books? One knows not now-a-days 
to what base uses of instruction even Jack the Giant-killer may have 
come. The very fairies of contemporary tales are sober beings, whom 
one regards with a vague suspicion that they wear spectacles and have 
a quantity of useful knowledge concealed somewhere about their gauzy 
garments. Their wands are strangely like knitting-needles; and their 

(11) 



12 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

grottoes often turn out, upon close inspection, to be little better than 
schoolrooms. If childhood is thus cheated into improving the shining 
holiday hours, can its instructors complain if they are hoist with their 
own petard ? 

"But oh, learned brotherhood! do not fear to follow me into my 
erudite pages. I shall treat you with all possible gentleness ; the medica- 
ments I proffer to you shall be so made up as to slip down your throats 
before you are conscious of the slightest nausea. And to save your sense 
of dignity, I will conceal my very humor so artfully that you shall not 
be aware that you are not reading one of the weekly comic papers. You 
shall swallow the mixture without a wry face or a twinge of conscience, 
as composedly as if it were a religious novel or a volume of Translations 
of the Royal Pantological Society, and it is only when we arrive at the 
Finis that you shall be able to understand how pleasingly and profitably 
at the same time you have been occupied. 

"The fact is, tliat there is a certain amount of duplicity about all my 
literary efforts. I write upon educational matters with two objects, viz : 
to make people think more of schoolmasters, and to make schoolmasters 
think less of themselves. To this purpose I employ two styles of lan- 
guage, and keep up a sort of three-cornered duel with the public and the 
profession. And there are also two classes of critical objectors to my 
writings; one which finds that 1 am too fond of talking nonsense, and 
another which is of opinion that I do not talk nonsense enough. 
Furthermore, those who like irreligious and those who like goody-goody 
utterances, are equally dissatisfied with the tone of my former produc- 
tions. Therefore it is at least not to be matter of surprise if two ele- 
ments are to be detected in this book. 

"Indeed it may even be observed by shrewd readers that I apparently 
contradict myself by sometimes laboring to foment, and sometimes 
stopping to throw cold water on, the educational zeal which we begin to 
see among us. Again I may be permitted to explain that I write under 
the influence of two distinct moods of opinion or feeling on this subject, 
which alternately influence my obedient pen. At one time my mind is 
filled with remembrance of certain educational experiences which lead 
me to suppose that dominies do not always perform as much for the 
benefit of their pupils as they might do. At another time T bethink me 
of a dream I had one night, wherein I saw an army of schoolmasters 
stretching forth their rods and muttering incantations, and a great 
plague of prigs arising from a sea of ink and coming up over the land." 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 



13 



About Dominies. 

(From "A Book About Dominies," by Robert Hope Moncrieff.) 



1. The Dominie. 

2. How I became a Dominie. 

3. Difficulties and vexations of 

the Dominie. 

4. Dangers of the Dominie. 



5. The work of the Dominie. 

6. Day-dreams of the Dominie. 

7. On other Dominies. 

8. Recollections of a Dominie. 

9. " Lion," or Chastisements. 



10. Disciplinarians. 



I. — T HE DOMINIE. 



Is mihi vivere atque frui anima videtur, qui, alicui negotio intentus, 
praeclari facinoris aut artis bonse famani qugerit.* — Sallust. 

I AM a dominie. I have spent my life in teaching boys, and it 
is to give my reader some insight into the joys and sorrows of 
such a life that I sit down to write these pages, first craving his 
indulgence if with an old man's garrulity I digress sometimes 
into my joys and sorrows as a man, not as a dominie. For I 
have found this Pegasus of mine so hard to catch, that I must 
be excused for having a good scamper, now that I am mounted. 
In youth, indeed, that fiery animal runs neighing to meet his mas- 
ter, and readily allows himself to be spurred on to the music of 
jingling rhyme, or not less poetical prose. But in age he grows 
lazy and wary, and the would-be author has to approach him 
slowiy and cautiously, alluring him with tempting offers from 
publishers, shaken in his ear like a sieve of oats; and when 
caught he has surely a right to perform the journey at his own 
pace and in his own way. 

I am aware that a dominie's life is often looked down upon by 
men who are not of nearly so much use in the world. It is sup- 
posed to be laborious, unremunerative, ungentlemanly. I don't 
wish to dispute all this, and I confess that there are but few 



* That person lives and enjoys life who, intent on a special occupation, seeks 
reputation from noble deeds or by skillful workmanship. 



14 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

prizes in the profession to tempt ambitious men to enter it. But 
I hope that before the reader lays down my work, he will admit 
the dominie's to be not altogether such an unenviable life, both 
in a worldly and in a higher point of view. 

Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson, who send their sons to 
be educated by me with about as much consideration as they 
send to Mr. Smith for their groceries, little think what a great 
man I am. Not only think myself to be, gentlemen, but am — 
in the eyes of your sons, at least, who are to be the Browns, the 
Joneses and the Robinsons of the next generation. My author- 
ity over them is enormous. It is a despotism tempered only by 
epigrams uttered behind my back, and unlimited by Parliaments 
and the want of supplies. Not even the Emperor of France nor 
the Queen of Spain can execute with impunity such coups d'etat 
as those by which I crush out the first spark of disaffection 
among my subjects. The King of Dahomey's power of tyranny is 
as that of a parish beadle compared to mine. The Czar of all the 
Russias is not treated by his people with more profound respect. 
True, when my boys verge towards hobble-de-hoyhood,they often 
become somewhat affected by the Radical tendencies of the pres- 
ent age, and even among the younger ones there may occasion- 
ally be found a juvenile Mazzini^ or Felix Holt;'^ but up to a 
certain age my pupils in general are thoroughly deferential and 
submissive. How could they be otherwise, when I am sovereign, 
law-maker, judge, police and executioner all in one? But I 
think I am speaking the truth when I say that this authority 
of mine is more deeply grounded than in mere fear. Boys have 
a great deal of natural faith ; and it requires but little effort 
on my part to make them believe in my wisdom and justice and 
dignity. Sometimes passion may get the better of this faith, and 
they may call me hard names — always behind my back; but on 
the whole they believe that they are far more likely to be in the 
WTong than I; and it is this belief which is the greatest power I 
have over them. 

I remember when I was a boy, that one of ni}^ own masters 
was, like too many other dominies, harsh, capricious, unrelent- 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 15 

ing. He made no allowances; he punished without discrimina- 
tion—as often unjustly as justly. Well, we did not exactly love 
this man; but we reverenced him. We took all his harshness as 
a matter of course, and fed with thankfulness upon the rare 
crumbs of human kindness which from time to time he flung us. 
We believed in him then ; and such is the force of custom that 
some of us believe in him to this day. Since we grew up, I have 
heard my old school-fellows talking of this man, and pronounc- 
ing him a most excellent man, and a most judicious master. I 
know better ; but then I have been all through the temple ; I have 
myself been hidden in the statue and delivered the oracles. 

This absolute faith of bo^^hood, in even a cruel and unjust 
master, may seem to some ridiculous; to me it is touching, and 
even beautiful. And it gives us so much power, that pace^ the 
Record and the Guardian, I consider myself as useful a man as 
my neighbor, the Rev. Mr. Johnson, the eminent preacher. His 
calling is nominally more sacred and honorable than mine; but 
I firmly believe that I have as many, if not more, opportunities 
of doing good than he. He teaches men; I teach boys. But not 
many of his pupils have such faith in him as mine have in me. 
His are not teachable; my pupils are. So I maintain that I am 
more truly a teacher than he, though his office is held in more re- 
spect and honor than mine by himself and the world. Messrs. 
Brown, Jones and Robinson ask him to dinner, but they do not 
ask me, though they would perhaps do so if I put on a white 
necktie, and added the semblance of his profession to the reality 
of my own. And he pats their boys on the head and tells them 
*'to be good;" and they listen in awed acquiescence, believing 
his kind of goodness to be something above their reach — some- 
thing mysteriously connected with a black coat and white neck- 
tie. This impression is deepened when they see him in the pulpit, 
and hear him promising incomprehensible blessings to those who 
think and feel as he does, and vaguely hinting at an end of unut- 
terable misery for those who do not. They do not listen much 
to his sermons; but they listen to and learn from mine, which I 
preach when I praise the boy who has done what is lovely and 



16 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

of good report, and blame the one who has shown himself base 
and mean. 

Here I may be censured for overstepping the boundaries of my 
proper profession. But I do not think T do so. I cannot even 
teach Latin and Greek without preaching against the sin of 
ignorance. And I try to teach more than Latin and Greek. I 
believe it to be my duty to train my pupils to be wise and good 
men, and to set before them, so far as I can, an example of the 
worthy manhood to which they should strive to attain. 

*' You teach morality, and quite right," the orthodox reader 
will say; " but it would be absurd and foolish of you to profess 
to teach them religion. These are different things." Alas! yes; 
in these days they are. We have many religions and many mo- 
ralities, which are truly different things, yet all more or less based 
upon the same thing. I believe that there is one religion and one 
morality, which are one and indivisible; and that, or as much of 
it as has been revealed to my mortal sight, I strive to teach, 
leaving it to my boys or their parents to choose the set of dog- 
mas upon which they may think it necessary to pin their faith. 

Presumptuous on m^- part, no doubt, even if not heterodox I 
But do you ever think, reader, that we teachers of mankind do 
not do enough, because we do not try enough? I know it is so 
with boys, who are more teachable than men. You can teach 
them almost anything if you only will. Did not the Spartans 
teach their boys to be brave and hardy and cunning, and did they 
not learn the lesson? Do not we teach our boys to be respectable 
and gentlemanly, and to go to church and say that they love 
God ; and do they not learn the lesson readily enough in most 
cases? And could we not teach them that the love of God is to 
be pure and wise, and brave and kind? Yes, if we all, parents 
and teachers, were pure and wise ourselves. For preaching and 
teaching are different things, as some of the Rev. Mr. Johnson's 
flock must have found out by this time. 

One word to the unthinking and strongly orthodox reader. 
God forbid that I should sneer at men of Mr. Johnson's profes- 
sion. I believe that many of them — most of them — are earnest, 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFP. 17 

well-meaning men who do their best to serve not only the Church 
of Rome, or the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, 
but the Church of God that liveth forever. But I think, and can- 
not help saying, that my profession is as useful and sacred as 
theirs. The time of their power has gone by — the time when all 
mankind were children and they were the teachers. Their pupils 
have grown beyond them, and their true occupation is gone; we 
dominies are stepping into their place. God grant us to know, 
and love, and teach His truth. 

Yes, I have no mean part in the battle of Time. Not, indeed, 
to go forth into the thick of the fight, but to stay by the tents, 
equipping and encouraging the young knights, polishing the ar- 
mor and sharpening the weapons which their Lord and King 
hath given them, reminding them of his power and greatness, and 
His servants' prowess. I have watched many of these knights 
ride forth, full of pride and hope. And some have fled basely be- 
fore the first charge of the foe, deserting their standards and dis- 
honoring their Leader. And some have struggled for a time, 
and then fainted and fallen by the wayside, their breastplates 
soiled, and their swords blunted. But more than one has pressed 
on through all the darts of the Evil One, in fierce joy and godl}^ 
sorrow, trampling down him and his works, and has never ceased 
to strike till he fell in the thick of the battle, with the shout of 
victory ringing in his ears, and the welcome of the angels' song: 
" Well done, good and faithful servant." 

No, no, my fellow-teachers, our calling is no ordinarj^ one. 
In after years when our boys are men, some of them, not the best, 
will talk of us with ridicule, or even malice. But if we have done 
our duty, some will look back to our tyranny with love and 
gratitude, remembering sins that we helped them to conquer, 
and blessings that we urged them to attain. And I for one would 
not think my life wasted, if I hoped that I had saved one 3^oung 
soul from the curse of selfishness and deceit— brought one young 
scholar to learn diligently in the school of God. 

2 T. L.— 2 



18 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 



II.— HOW I BECAME A DOMINIE. 

The strong- hand that kindly led 

Me to the gates of manhood's strife, 
That first enticed my infant feet 

To paddle in the snrf of life, 
Is gone, and in the deeper sea 

I stand, no more a trustful child, 
But shivering as tlie waves close round, 

So cold, and dark, and wild. A. E. H. 

How did I become a dominie? The question may well be asked 
of all members of my profession. For wliile men are destined 
and trained from their youth to church, law, or physic, they gen- 
erally become teachers from chance or necessity ; and as soon as, 
or before, they have passed through an apprenticeship, in which 
they may or may not learn what they are doing, and how to do 
it, they too often exchange this for some less laborious or more 
profitable calling. I became a dominie from necessity; I remained 
one from choice. 

Let me for one moment draw aside the curtain of the Past, and 
reveal to you a scene which is as vividly impressed on my memory 
as if it took place yesterday, though it was many and long years 
ago. 

A sick-chamber, in which two weeping women and a young 
man hang over the dying gasps of him who is dearest on earth 
to them all. No sound is heard but their stifled sobs and the 
fearfully distinct ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece, till a 
wild hysterical cry tells that all is over; and in the gray, sickly 
light of a spring dawn the young man is closing the dull eyes 
that will never more brighten with a father's love and pride, 

A common and a sad story; the sadder because it is so com- 
mon. The hope and stay of a household removed in the prime of 
life; an orphan son and daughters sent forth to fight feebly for 
themselves that battle through which his strong arm had hith- 
erto borne them careless and secure. 

He had loved us not wisely but too well. During his lifetime 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 19 

all the comforts and luxuries of our station had been ours; but, 
in the pride and strength of his manhood, lie had neglected to 
provide adequately for us in the case of an event which he rashly 
trusted was far distant. So after his death we found that we 
must not only give up our home, but would have a hard struggle 
to live in anything like respectabiHty. 

My sisters could do little; but then they would cost little. It 
was I who was at once the burden and the hope of our bereaved 
family. What could I do ? I was twenty-one years of age. I had 
had an expensive education, which I had expected soon to end in 
the honors and emoluments of a learned profession. But now 
that I wished to realize my intellectual acquirements, I found 
that Latin and Greek would command but little salein the ready- 
money market. I was too old for a mercantile office, even if I 
had not been a very poor hand at figures, and altogether unac- 
customed to business habits. There was but one resource open 
to me. I looked out for a situation as under-master or usher at 
a private school, and obtained one with little difficulty. 

I have read many touching tales of the sufferings of ushers, of 
the slights put on them by their employers, of the insults they 
are accustomed to receive from their pupils. I am bound to say 
that, on the whole, m^^ experience has been to the contrar3^ I 
have been in several such situations, and was generally treated 
like a gentleman, or at least as much like a gentleman as a young 
man on sixty pounds a year can expect. But then I fancy I was 
lucky. From the boys I met often enough with annoyances 
caused by thoughtlessness, seldom or never with malicious in- 
sults. It is a mistake to suppose that boys generally look down 
on their teachers. It is faroftener their parents who do so. Even 
an under-master may generallj^ make himself well enough respected 
by his pupils, if he likes, and can get on well enough at a board- 
ing-school, where the parents are not at hand to snub him. 

Then I cannot say that I ever found the "drudgery," "monot- 
ony," "pettiness," and so forth, in a schoolmaster's life, which 
so man^" people seem to think it is composed of. The work was cer- 
tainly hard ; so is most useful work. True, it seemed at first very 



20 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

discouraging to hammer musa, niussB, and anio, amas, into one 
ear of little heads which straightway let it out at the other; but 
there were daily crumbs of intelligence and interest from more 
hopeful pupils, which I took and was thankful. And it was a ter- 
rible thing at first to assume a magisterial frown and pass im- 
promptu sentences which would confine little curly-haired urchins 
in dull schoolrooms, toiling painfully, and perhaps tearfully, with 
the shouts of their luckier companions ringing in their ears from 
the playground. And it seemed hard at first to have tohurtthe 
little hands when I would rather have borne the punishment my- 
self, to see tearful eyes looking up at my face, not in rage, but 
entreaty. But on the whole I liked the work, and its very monot- 
ony was far from irksome, even enjoyable, to me. Till then I had 
been a purposeless dreamer, and I felt, for the first time since I 
had left school, what a good and happy thing it is to have hard 
and regular work to do, work which comes to be in itself a pleas- 
ure, and makes well-earned hours of rest doubly sweet. 

In one way the change in our circumstances little affected me. 
I had never been a dandy nor a Sybarite,* I had never cared for 
the pleasures of riches. So it was no trial to me to have to wear 
my coats till they were shabby, and to live on constant roast 
mutton, suet-dumplings, bread and scrape, and the other dain- 
ties of boarding-schools. If it had not been for my sisters I 
would rather have rejoiced than otherwise in the state of com- 
parative poverty in which I now found myself. And soon all care 
for their welfare was useless; for they died two years after my 
father — died almost on the same day, of an infectious fever, 
which the one had taken at the bedside of the other — died, and 
left me alone in the world, alone but for dim memories of their 
gentle voices and loving smiles, w-hich still come and go in my 
heart like a strange, incredible dream. 

It was indeed well for me, in these days of unutterable sorrow, 
that I had work to do which could occupy my thoughts. If they 
had not been so occupied I might have gone mad, or written spas- 
modic poetry. But the kindly stream of fresh young human life 
around me, soothed the wounds of my heart, and prevented me 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 21 

from brooding; over my grief. From the day that I returned to the 
school in a new suit of black, and was stared at by the boys with 
a mixed feeling of curiosity and sympathy, I gave myself up 
more completely to them, seeking from them the love of which 
death had so cruelly bereft me. 

I wonder if these thoughtless urchins ever guessed why I tried 
to be so patient and gentle with them ! Did they think it strange 
of me that I stroked their shaggy heads, and wound my arm 
around their necks in quiet corners of the playground, inviting 
them to confide to me their troubles and their pleasures ? Did 
they think me weak because I spent so much time in remonstrat- 
ing with naughty boys, who ought to have been soundly whipped, 
and who, in fact, used to wink at their companions while I was 
appealing to their good feelings, and exhorting them to peni- 
tence? Most likely they thought and called me a soft, easy-going 
fellow, and rejoiced in my being so, after the manner of boys. 
They never could have known how eagerly I was yearning for 
them to love me, and to let me love them. 

The death of my sisters made it no longer necessary for me to 
be a schoolmaster. I had now means of continuing my studies 
long enough to enter some learned profession. My friends 
strongly urged me to this, and took much trouble to point out 
to me the disadvantages of my position, and to describe in glow- 
ing colors the prizes I might attain to in the church or the law. 
My ambition was roused ; but mine is one of tliose natures which, 
having once come to run in any fixed rut of life, cannot, without 
a great effort, tear themselves out of it, and begin to wear away 
another. For some little time I hesitated, uncertain which path 
to choose, though rather inclined to the one which was beginning 
to grow familiar to me. 

In this doubtful state of mind I went up to London in the 
Christmas holidays on business which detained me there some 
days. I remember this visit well. I remember it, because then 
for the first time I passed Christmas eve, not at the friendly fire- 
side of a kindlyhome, but wandering restlessly and sadly through 
the cold, busy streets of the great city, in which I had not a 



22 THE TEA CHER IN LITER A TURE. 

friend. And I remember how, at midnight, as I crossed Trafalgar 
Square, the bells of St. Martin's pealed forth a joyful strain, 
loudly proclaiming the peace and good-will cf Heaven to all 
mankind. The sound swelled into my troubled heart, and filled 
it with a blessed happiness akin to sorrow, so that I went home 
to my humble lodging lonely, yet not alone, and gave thanks to 
God for telling me, that He, at least, is love. 

Next day I made my way through the sloppy streets to an old- 
fashioned church in the city. It was a. dark, dingy church, very 
sparely attended, and the clergyman was a worthy, dull man, 
and the charity children who formed tlie choir might have sung 
much better; but there was a reason why I should prefer that 
old church to the more fashional)le temples, which were no far- 
ther distant from my lodgings. For there, one Sunday, when we 
were staying at a neighboring hotel, I had gone with him whom 
I thought wisest, and kindest, and bravest on earth; and I wished 
to sit once more in the moth-eaten pews, and to fancy that I sat 
by his side and looked up into his face. 

Sitting in that dingy church that Christmas morning, and 
many, many times besides, I have felt how true are the words of 
a great song of sorrow — 

" ' Tis better to have loved and loRt, 
Than never to hav<! loved at all."^ 

For there is no joy of life so sweet as to feel the memories of the 
dead hovering round us like angels' wings, guarding us from the 
powers of evil, softening and cleansing our hard hearts. 

The sermon preached on that Christmas morning was, I have 
no doubt, excellent in its way; sound, pointed and appropriate. 
But I heard little of it. While the preacher was reading his care- 
fully-written pages, I was thinking — dreaming, if you will. I 
thought of the happy Christmases long ago, and the familiar 
little country church, gay with evergreens, where I sat by the 
side of my father, joining my childish voice in the joyful strain 
of the herald angels, and gravely repeating the mysteries of the 
Athanasian Creed. I thou^-ht how beautiful that Christmas 



ROBERT HOPE MON CRIEFF. 23 

hymn was, and wished it were simg every day in the hearts of 
all men. I thou^'ht with wonder, not unmixed with sorrow^, of 
that creed in which my fellow-w^orshippers had just declared, with 
much satisfaction, that they believed in certain subtle, metaphys- 
ical definitions of their God ; and furthermore, that whosoever 
did not so believe, " without doubt should perish everlastingly." 
I thought of streets I had passed through that morning, where 
tliere was but little joy for the peace and good-will of Heaven; 
little but poverty, misery, wickedness. I thought of another 
street I had passed by, where the devil dares to show his face 
in the shop-windows, where I had seen immortal men buying 
and selling that which I could not but blush to look at. I 
thought of the grim prison hard by, teeming with iniquity and 
godlessness. I thought of the rich mansions of the great city, 
so many of them inhabited by men and women who forget their 
God, or alas! remembering Him, yet bow down to the Rim- 
mons** of this heathen w^orld. And then a great yearning rose 
suddenly in my heart, a strong eagerness to go forth and do 
battle with this niighty devil, to save not only myself, but my 
brethren, from their sins; to do something to make God's king- 
dom come, not to a few, but into the hearts of all His children. 

Should I become a clergyman, sign the Thirty -nine Articles, 
wear black, and devote myself to reading essays upon Justifica- 
tion by Faith, and the wisdom of the Church of England? No; 
even if I had wished to enter this respectable profession, I felt 
that I could not do so without lying to my own heart. I could 
not take my stand by any one of the little heap of dogmas which 
various "churches "have gathered together and proclaimed to be 
the infinite sum of God's truth. 

Should I go forth, like the Master I would follow, into the 
lanes and byways of the land, to comfort and succor and teach 
the poor? I might try to do good, as He did, without the stamp 
and the pay of any church. But, alas! I felt how unequal I was 
to such a task. I had been brought up as a "gentleman ; " I had 
never associated with m^^ fellow-men of lower rank, so as to 
know their wants and trials. I saw and heard that men sufferecj 



24 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

hunger and cold and nakedness on every side of me, yet I knew 
not what I could do to help them. 

And yet was I to do nothing for God — for God, who was daily 
so good to me, who had not made me ignorant and wicked and 
miserable as others are? Was I to enjoy His countless blessings 
without lifting a hand to fight in His battle? Was I to sing 
hymns about His goodness and glory — and nothing more? 

A trivial circumstance changed the course of my thoughts just 
then. Eight opposite me was a gallery in which sat three or four 
rows of boys, sadly inattentive, like me, to the sermon, and not 
so decorously quiet as I was. A familiar sound made me look 
up, and 1 saw that the beadle had struck one of them with a lit- 
tle cane which he carried to maintain some show of order. The 
man in authority turned away, and the little culprit rubbed his 
hands across his eyes, and indulged in a few submissive tears. 
But there was another boy, a little black-eyed fellow, doubtlessa 
Cockney tidus Achates'^ of the first, who shook his fist behind the 
beadle's back with a look of intense indignation which I shall 
never forget, and then turned to comfort his friend. 

1 could not help being pleased with the vehemence of the little fel- 
low's friendship. No doubt they were both naughty boys, and richly 
deserved all they got from the much-enduring beadle. But was 
this altogether a wicked feeling which was sparkling out of those 
black eyes? Was there not in it something of the divine flame of 
love which is the essence of all virtue? He never reasoned as to 
whether his friend was justly punished or not, but he loved, him, 
and was angry because he had been hurt. At an earlier part of 
the service, I had seen the same boy get a sharper cut across the 
knuckles, which he bore with great equanimity, and presently 
winked derisively for the benefit of his companions. 

And this set me thinking that there is no l)oy so wicked and 
stupid and disrespectable, but lurks in hie heart some desire to 
love and to be loved, some feeling which teaches him that he can- 
not hope to find happiness in himself alone, but must look for it 
in being just and kind to his neighbors. And thus, in the midst 
of sin and sorrow, we have love and kindness springing up in spite 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 25 

of thorns and weeds. Some call this our own righteousness, and 
speak of it with great contempt as filthy rags; but I believe it to 
be a little ray of the Spirit of God, ever shining, faintly or 
brightly, in the hearts of His children, to remind them that its 
full glory is their destined end and inheritance. 

And to tend and foster this ray in the hearts of the young — 
for God has ordained that it maybe fostered by human means — 
would this not be a worthy and useful work for a man who was 
eager to do his Lord's work? 

This was the very work I was doing. The thought came to 
me suddenly, and yet so plainly, that I wondered I had not per- 
ceived it before. As a teacher I had daily opportunities of doing 
what I longed to do, something to make my fellows-men better 
and wiser and happier. 

The clergyman had pronounced the blessing, and the congre- 
gation were dispersing ; bub I lingered behind in the pew to make 
a silent vow, which I had resolved upon in a moment — that all 
my life I would be a schoolmaster, and would devote myself to 
teaching wisdom to boys, not only the wisdom which is for col- 
leges and libraries, not that which is for Sundays and controver- 
sial pamphlets, but the pure Wisdom which is one with Goodness 
and Happiness, and is for every day and hour of life. 

Thus I became and remained a schoolmaster. 



III.— DIFFICULTIES AND VEXATIONS OF THE DOMINIE. 

Est animns tibi, sunt mores, est lingua fidesque, 

Sed quadringentis sex septem millia desint, 

Plebis eris.* —Horace. 

Besides our greater sorrows, to some extent common to all 
men, we dominies, like all men, meet with peculiar difficulties and 
stumbling-blocks on our professional path. 

Perhaps the chief of these is the grievance to which I think I 
have already alluded, about our social position. Being great 



*Although soul, breeding, eloquence and honor be yours, yet you will be a ple- 
]^eian if you lack six or seven thousand to complete your four hundred thousand. 



26 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

men in our schoolrooms, we naturally do not rt'lish being little 
men out of them. We are offended that the parents of our pupils 
do not always treat us as their equals, or even superiors, as in 
most cases we feel ourselves to be. Believing our profession to be 
a noble and a sacred one, we object to being ranked below the 
men who speak platitudes in the holy name of religion, and those 
who hire themselves out at so many guineas a brief to spenk 
truth or lies in the scarcely less holy name of justice. We are of- 
fended because vulgar parents do not always address us as "Es- 
quire." We demand that a Reform Bill on the lateral principle 
be introduced into the social constitution of our nation, amend- 
ing it after the model of that of Athens, where the best and 
bravest and most honored men of the estate Wv^re not ashamed 
to become dominies, and were honored all the more by their 
countrymen because they could teach as well as fight and har- 
angue. 

Some will deny that there is any necessity for such a reform. 
They will instance in proof that they have even asked the family 
dominie to dinner. But did they ask his wife? And do their con- 
sciences not tell them that they invited him and received him 
with much the same feelings as Sir John Bull invites his tenantry 
to dinner on rent-day; or Lady Albion sends a card for her con- 
versazione to Mr. Plebeian Genius, who is so clever, and has written 
such an amusing book ? They do generally look upon us in the 
same light, unless we happen to be clergymen, as many of us 
are; and then, since religion has become more fashionable than 
it was in the dnjs of the apostles, a white tie is found to be an 
Open Sesame to the portals of every kind of society. And some 
of them, too, make an exception in favor of rich and prosperous 
dominies, who maybe at the head of large or well-known schools; 
while they look down with great contempt on the tribe of tutors 
and assistant masters. This is my aunt Taditha's view of the 
subject. My worthy aunt is more noted for dignity and affec- 
tion than for acuteness and mental power; and Avhen I first be- 
came a teacher, she remonstrated with me upon compromising 
the family name, and reminded me that God had made me a gen- 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRJEFF. 27 

tleman, and would expect me to lay out my talents in a more 
genteel way. "If you were at the head of a good school, it 
would be a different matter," she admitted; "but an assistant 
master!" 1 vainly endeavored to persuade my good aunt of 
the truth of the heathen sentiment Vires acquirit eundo^^ and 
pointed out to her that though, if the Prince of Wales thought 
fit to be an honorary teacher of boys as well as an honorary 
slaughterer of men, he would doubtless at once obtain the chief 
post in a celebrated and well-endowed school; still I, not being 
such a great personage, could not expect to be so lucky, but 
must win my way to command by serving in the inferior grades 
of the profession. But my aunt Tabitha was inexorable and un- 
reasonable; and there are many people who are no wiser than 
she on this matter, and consider a teacher, however learned and 
well-bred, as a being far lower in the scale of life than the drawl- 
ing, conceited puppy into whose thick head he has crammed with 
great difficulty as much knowledge as has enabled him to squeeze 
through an army examination. 

But in spite of what I have just said, and what I have said 
before, I am not very bitter over this grievance of our social 
position. I complain because my profession complains, but per- 
sonally I have no great sympathy with those thin-skinned dom- 
inies who invoke Mrs. Grundy with alternate upbraidings and 
entreaties, demanding and beseeching of her to make them gentle- 
men, in the most select sense of the word. I have no very good 
will towards this divinity of the genteel world, and object to rec- 
ognizing the principle that she can issue letters-patent to this 
effect. The fact is, that among dominies, as among men of all 
other professions, there are some who never could be made gen- 
tlemen by any ordinance of Mrs. Grundy, and some who never 
could be, or could be thought to be, except by fools and vulgar 
persons, anything else. I think, then, that we dominies should 
not concern ourselves about waiting upon Mrs. Grundy, both 
because, like the shepherd in Virgil and Dr. Johnson, we may find 
her at length to be a native of the rocks, and because, knowing 
our calling to be a good and a godly one, we can afford to do 



28 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

without the countenance of all earthly and diabolical divinities. 
And oh ! my brother dominies, you have yet to learn an element- 
ary lesson in the nature of human joys and sorrows, if you do 
not know how sweet and pleasant a thing it is to feel one's self 
ill-used and injured, to nurse and cuddle in one's heart a darling 
grievance, to be despised and to despise a hundredfold in return; 
to mount an invisible height of moral grandeur, and thence sur- 
vey with complacent pity the crass and unappreciative mass of 
mankind ! For practical and poetical illustrations of which sen- 
timent, see Byron and other writers of the discontentedly spas- 
modic school. 

While I am on this topic, I wish to say a word upon a notable 
scheme which certain philosophers have propounded for improv- 
ing the social position of our profession. To this end all dom- 
inies are to band themselves together into a sort of union, and 
to stamp themselves with a hall-mark of their own approbation, 
which by a law, luckily not yet obtained, it will be penal to 
counterfeit. If I understand the scheme rightly, all present dom- 
inies of influence are to be bribed into consent by being stamped 
gratis, while all young dominies of the present, and unfledged 
dominies of the future are to earn this stamp by undergoing an 
examination into their acquirements. I doubt much if this plan 
will exalt us more highly in the public esteem ; but I doubt more 
if it will fulflll the other end of its advocates, in shutting for the 
future the gates of the profession against all but good and fit 
men. 

I never knew a dominie who had been a bankrupt tradesman; 
but novelists and popular runjor declare our profession to be 
largely composed of such men, and I am willing to admit that 
the thing is possible and lamentable. But I deny that we could 
get good dominies by examination. Such examinations are gen- 
erally tests of nothing but cramming. And the skill of a good 
dominie is just such as cannot be crammed into or questioned 
out of a man. I can quite understand that any one ought to be 
examined as to his knowledge of anatomy before he be allowed 
to tamper with the human body ; but I do not believe that any 



nOBEttT HOPE MONCniEFF. 29 

examination, oral or written, can show whether he be fit or unfit 
to deal with the minds of boys. You may examine a man as to 
his knowledge of the force of kata^ in composition, but you can- 
not by examining him find out whether he is firm and kind and 
vigilant and persevering, and still less whether he has the power 
of imparting his knowledge of kata, and other subjects to unwill- 
ing and unretentive little minds that don't want to know any- 
thing about kata. To know and to teach are different matters; 
and, unfortunately, those who have the most knowledge are too 
often the least able to impart it. For if a man does his best to 
dry himself up into a Latin and Greek mummy, he cannot be 
expected to have preserved among his vast stores of irregular 
perfects and aorists any very vivid remembrance of how he felt 
and thought and loved and hated as a boy; and this is just the 
sort of knowledge which above all others a dominie ought to 
have. The fact is, that a man who knows nothing of Latin but 
musa, musse, and in whose mind are still fresh his difficulties in 
getting to know it, will, ceteris paribus,^^ be better able to teach 
musa to boys, than a man who has all the beauties of the lan- 
guage at his finger-ends, and most likely will not so well under- 
stand how to set his pupils on the long road, the early steep and 
rocky places of which he has forgotten, or perhaps scarcely ever 
known. So I would not prohibit a man who knows nothing but 
musa teaching that, always provided that he does not presume 
to teach dominus, which he does not know. If he is a clever 
teacher, he can easily learn and be able to teach dominus too, if 
necessary ; and if he is a conscientious teacher, he will not try to 
teach dominus unless he has learned it. Now, you can by exam- 
ination make sure of learned, or at least crammed teachers, but 
not of clever or conscientious teachers. 

But the age of universal competitive examination is coming 
upon us — a golden age indeed for dominies, if they have not to 
submit to examination themselves. I don't despair of seeing the 
day when no poet shall be allowed to print verses (what human 
power could restrain him from writing them ! ) till he has shown 
a competent knowledge of quadratic equations, and no street- 



30 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

porter shall be suffered to carry for us the slightest burden unless 
he has proved himself a proficient in the art of making Greek 
hexameters. 

I think a much more legitimate object of such a union, as of 
other trades-unions, would be the increasing of the salaries of 
dominies. Here again I must be understood as grumbling 
not on my own account, but on behalf of my brethren. For my- 
self, although Messrs. Goldleaf know the average amount of my 
balance at their bank, and do not treat me with any very pro- 
found deference in consideration thereof, I may say that I am 
one of the richest men I know, for I have always more money 
than I want. But I can sympathize with the difficulties of a 
dominie who has been brought up as a gentleman, and has a 
family to bring up in the same way upon the salary which he re- 
ceives for doing much harder and nobler and more useful work 
than half of the rich people whose sons he is educating. There are 
indeed prizes in the profession; fat headmasterships, with fair 
prospects of deaneries and bishoprics, open to such of us as are 
clergymen; but most of us are wofully ill-paid. A tutor in a gen- 
tleman's family too often receives the wages of a butler without 
his perquisites. And after many years of hard study and labor, 
when he has fought his way to a a mastership in some good 
school, he still finds that he is not half so well off as a fashionable 
tailor. And yet you will hear parents moaning over the expense 
of education; while the factis,that theeducation of their children 
costs them less than their clothes. This is but natural in days 
when the outside is looked at more than the inside by the Phari- 
saical disciples of Mrs. Grundy. But if we were to return to the 
simplicit}^ of the corduroys of my boyish days, and were to in- 
crease the salaries of dominies with the price of the foppish ap- 
parel in which our modern youth delights to array itself, I ven- 
ture to say that it would be better both for the dominies and for 
the next generation. 

This is the real cause for the low estimation in which dominies 
are held. We are apt to value a thing not by the cost of its pro- 
duction so much as by the price w^e pay for it. If people were to 



kOBERT HOPE MOXCRIEf. 31 

pay their dominies better, I am certain they would think more 
highly of them. 

Let me briefly refer to the annoyance which the parents of 
onr pupils give us by their interference in the way of suggestion 
and remonstrance. This annoyance takes its worst form when 
a promising boy is removed from our care to that of another 
dominie, because he is supposed '' not to be getting on." We are 
all bigoted believers in ourselves, and have no faith in the sys- 
tems of others; so it is natural in us to feel some real concern, 
apart from pecuniary considerations, for a boy who is thus de- 
prived of the enormous advantage of our teaching, and given 
over to be ruined, as we think, by an inferior workman. So this 
is one of the chief annoyances of a dominie; and in the present 
state of things, I fear we must just bear it with as little com- 
plaint as possible. I suppose parents must have some interest 
in the education of their children, and must be allowed to take 
whatever steps seem best to them to secure their being brought 
up to be wise men; only one can't help wishing sometimes that 
the parents were a little wiser themselves. Of course. Master 
Bobby Somebody's mamma and papa have a right to take him 
away from my class and send him to Mr. So-and-so's; but as I 
think I am getting Master Bobby's young ideas to shoot in a 
most satisfactory way, and as I consider Mr. So-and-so an igno- 
rant and conceited puppj'-, and remember the day when he was 
himself a pupil of mine, and that for years he blundered at the 
vocative of dominus, I can't help feeling annoyed by the change. 
Philosophers would tell me that the annoyance comes from 
wounded vanity ; and perhaps they are not altogether wrong, 
but it is an annoyance for all that. 

Perhaps I ought not to mention this as one of the peculiar 
troubles of a dominie, for I suppose a physician has the same 
feelings when a good nervous patient deserts him for another 
practitioner of novel, and therefore dangerous ideas ; and a cler- 
gyman, when a family who have "sat under" him for years, 
ti-ansfer their spiritual allegiance to a place of worship where the 
gospel is preached more strongly, or purely, or broadly, or milk- 



32 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

and-watery, as the case may be. But I now come to a great and 
special vexation to which we, of all learned professions, are chiefly 
exposed — being called nicknames. Our boys, from thoughtless- 
ness oftener than from ill-feeling, give us soubriquets which some- 
times stick to us all our lives, not much to our satisfaction, inas- 
much as they are generally uncomplimentary to our personal 
appearance and manners. Of however philosophical a disposi- 
tion he nmy be, it is not very pleasant for an old and honorable 
schoolmaster to know that he is talked of among two genera- 
tions of boys and men by some such appellation as " Old Clo'" 
or " Grumphy." We soon learn what our nickname is, if we have 
one; and then we live in constant dread of it, and never see our 
boys whispering laughingly together without suspicion. We 
are taunted with it in anonymous letters and valentines, which 
we often receive about the middle of the month of February, and 
sometimes in audible words on the streets by bold and rude bo^^s, 
who of course are not our pupils, but perhaps once were, or per- 
haps know us only by fame. The other morning, while I was at 
breakfast, I was shocked at the spectacle of a highly respectable 
dominie, who, with irate countenance, was rushing along the 
street in hot haste after a naughty boy who had ventured to cry 
"Goggles " as he was passing. My professional sympathies were 
of course with the pursurer, and I was glad to see the rash youth 
caught and soundly belabored in an effectual way which only 
dominies understand. 

These nicknames are very varied in kind, and say much for the 
versatility of boyish wit. Sometimes they are opprobrious epi- 
thets derived from the unlucky name it may be a master's fate to 
bear. Thus a dominie called Cowan will likely be unofficially 
known to his pupils as "Cow;" while a French master of the 
name of Piquier would run a great risk of being familiarly de- 
nominated "Piggy." Sometimes there is a most profound phil- 
ological secret in these names. I once knew a master whom all 
his pupils called "Rooty," none of them knowing why, though 
some were inclined to attribute it to his voice resembling that of the 
principal actor in a certain celebrated domestic drama. I set myself 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 33 

to the study of this problem, and succeeded in tracing the deri- 
vation of the word. The master's initials were L, S. D.; and some 
bright boyish genius, stimulated probably by a recent caning, 
having suggested that these letters represented the root of all 
evil, this somewhat cumbrous nickname was given him, and 
speedily corrupted, by a sweeping process of phonetic decay, into 
the familiar word whose origin w^as lost in mystery to the boys of 
the next school generation. 

A dominie's nickname is often simply his Christian name irrev- 
erently contracted or adorned with an epithet. Thus " Bobby," 
or " Old Jack," are nicknames of the least offensive class. But 
boys are not at all particular about the real names in this case; 
and if they think a master has not received a sufficiently attract- 
ive appellation at his baptism, will not hesitate to change it, and 
even forget the distinction of sex. I have known two dominies 
who were always called " Peter," though they did not sign them- 
selves so; and one who was known as " Molly " from a romantic 
attachment he w^as said to cherish for a fabulous female of that 
name. 

But perhaps the majority of nicknames are derived from per- 
sonal peculiarities of their owners. The origin of such names as 
" Waxy," ''Snuffy," '' Snarleyow," '' Puggy," must be evident to 
every reflective mind. And though perhaps the bearers of these 
names have at one time given cause for them, still it is hard that 
no repentence or amendment on their part can wipe out the 
stigma which a flash of naughty young wit has cast upon them. 

I know a very worthy and learned man who was once a dom- 
inie, but has since risen on ecclesiastical stepping-stones to higher 
things; and he has told me, with quiet and complacent glee, that 
he was the only schoolmaster he ever knew who had not a nick- 
name. In some things it is not well to be wise. He did not know, 
and I did not tell him, that he had a nickname, by wiiich he is 
known to this day among those wiio do not reverence his grizzled 
locks and kindly wisdom. Happy ignorance ! 

If our boys sometimes take a pleasure in tormenting us, they 
little know how difficult and vexatious it often is for us to torment 

2 T. L.-3 



34 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

them, as I suppose they think we take a pleasure m doing. They lit- 
tle know how hard it sometimes is to frown and punish. They lit- 
tle know how often we cloud our own happiness in pronouncing 
sentence of boyish misery against them. They little think, when 
we are doing a certain disagreeable part of our duty, that the 
smart sometimes lingers longer and sorer in our hearts than on 
their skins. I am sure I have reproached myself for thrashing a 
boy hours after the tears have dried from his eyes, and he has 
forgotten all about it in a hearty romp. And sometimes the 
pleasure of many of WlJ afternoon walks has been spoiled by 
thoughts of the merry urchin whom I have left locked up in 
school, to write out or learn some dreary task. Nay, I have lain 
awake half the night, thinking of the punishment which it 
would be my duty to inflict next morning. We can't expect our 
boys to believe this, I suppose; but surely older and wiser people 
ought to grant that nature has not given us less kindly hearts 
than other men, and to appreciate the difficulty which we find in 
being cruel that we may be kind. 

It would be tedious to go over all the numerous worries and 
vexations which a dominie has to endure in the management of a 
large class of boys. Sometimes half your class will come to school 
without having learned an important lesson. Sometimes Master 
Charley, by whose open countenance and frank blue eyes you 
thought you could have sworn, will be detected in telling you a 
downright lie. Sometimes, again, you will find that you have 
punished Master Johnny unjustly. These things are sore troubles 
to the good dominie, and many others which a dominie will un- 
derstand, though I could not expect lay-readers to do so. 

I may say, then, that though a dominie's life has many and 
great joys, it has also constant worries, which weigh sorely upon 
such of us as have weak digestion, and therefore get easily into 
low spirits. If, however, you are one of the lucky men who have 
— alas, how few have! — mens sana in corpore sano, a sound 
stomach and a sunny temper, you maj' despise these petty vexa- 
tions, and console yourself by thinking how wise and powerful and 
useful you are, and how much more so many other people are, and 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 35 

how all parents are not stupid , nor all pupils naughty. The smaller 
joys and sorrows of a dominie's life are very much as you take 
them. It might have been of a dominie that Horace wrote: 

Dives, 
Liber, honoratus, pulcher, rex denique regum; 
PrsBcipue sanus, nisi cum pituita molesta est.* 

But even if the bile be troublesome, you may have, not pleas- 
ure, but a happiness and satisfaction which are better than 
pleasure in knowing that bravely, diligently and painfully, you 
are doing a good thing in the service of God, bearing a share in 
the holy duty of making His world more like Himself. To this 
end may he give all dominies strength to labor and suffer, ere the 
night Cometh when no man can longer work or weep ! 



IV. — DANGERS OF THE DOMINIE. 

He treads a dangerous path that beareth rule; 
Who standeth in the forefront of the fight, 
The darts fly thicker round. — Old Play. 

I FEAR I am a careless writer. A literary dominie is very apt 
to want precision and arrangement, inasmuch as these qualities 
are not much called into exercise in teaching boys who require to 
have a piece of knowledge drummed into them by constant repe- 
tition. However, I do not wish to insult my readers by instruct- 
ing them in this manner ; and if I am going to repeat to them in 
this chapter some things which I have told them already, my ex- 
cuse must be that they deserve to be repeated. 

The fact is, that within four-and-twenty hours after writing 
the last line of my chapter on the difficulties and vexations of 
a dominie, I read, with much interest, and not a little self- 
reproach, a book, by a Transatlantic authoress, called Little 
Foxes.^^ The title of this book shows its object, which is to point 
out that there are some hurtful and insidious sins, into which 



* Rich, free, honorable, handsome, even a king of kings and above all sound, 
except when troubled with indigestion. 



^6 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

respectable people, who go to church regularly and abhor all 
flagrant wickedness, are in great danger of falling. This re- 
minded me that I ought to devote a chaj)ter to certain great 
dangers to which dominies are peculiarly exposed, but which I 
have as yet only hinted at. 

The flrst and chief of these is vanity. We are all in danger of 
thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, but 
dominies especially so. Consider how much power we wield for 
so many hours a day, with what respect we are addressed, with 
what deference we are listened to. When I come down to my 
classroom in the morning, I find half a dozen boys hanging 
about the door, waiting for a word and a smile, and eager to do 
the slightest service for me. When I begin to teach, half a dozen 
of them will almost fight to have tlie honor of lending me a 
book, I fancy that most of us receive the like flattery, if we are 
not exceedingly grim and grumpy. How hard, then, is it for us 
not to consider ourselves Sir Oracle, and to expect that men will 
defer to our wisdom as well as boys ! Therefore is it, as I have 
said, that we are an unsocial and unfriendly profession; for in 
proportion as we think highly of ourselves, so we think lowly of 
one another. Half a dozen dominies in a company, trying to 
snub one another, would be as interesting and instructive a sight 
as half a dozen kings of Dahomey shut up in a cage. There is in- 
deed great danger of our failing in that humility which does not 
rank very high among the virtues blessed by the approval of Mrs. 
Grundy, but which is very necessary for the right service of God. 

There is danger, too, of our not only being dictatorial, but 
cruel and cross. Remember that we are judge, jury, prosecutor 
and executioner in our single persons. How difficult will it be 
then for us to keep the milk of human kindness from souring in 
our hearts ! The habit of fault-finding is dangerous to any man's 
sweetness of temper and peace of mind, and it is a great part of 
our professional duty to find out and correct faults. Daily and 
hourly we are not only tempted but compelled to rebuke, and 
scold, and punish; and we should be more than mortal if we 
always exercised our functions with love and wisdom. 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 37 

There are some lucky dominies whose temper and health are 
always sound, and who, therefore, are never snappish, or impa- 
tient, or sarcastic. If they ever get angry, it blows off in a min- 
ute. They can laugh good-natureidly at everything, and sweeten 
even their punishments with a joke. But we are not all so fortu- 
nate. Some of us, alas! have stomachs and nerves like other 
men, and work more wearing to these than that of other men, 
and therefore we are even more prone than other men to get into 
unhappy irritable states of mind and body. You know what I 
mean, dyspeptic reader. You know how cranky and jarringly 
the world sometimes seems to you to go. You can sympathize 
with me in the gloomy moments when I feel inclined to desert my 
post here, and fly from this murky, foggy, hateful country, to 
the dim shores of Italy, to seek rest and peace in the cool olive- 
groves that fringe the glorious Mediterranean, and lie at the foot 
of the snow-clad Alps. My banker's book, if not my conscience, 
forbids me, but I often long to betake myself to that blessed 
land, and there to bathe my wearied mind in a Lethe of light and 
beauty, and forget that there are boys on the earth, and that I 
ever was a schoolmaster. 

Such unhappy and discontented thoughts come generally from 
over-indulgence in meat or drink, or work or excitement. And 
if such over-indulgence be wrong in all men, much more is it so in 
dominies. For our sins in this respect will be visited on our 
boys. If, while we are in this state of mind, we find that Mas- 
ter ThickskuU is hard to be convinced of the truth that an ad- 
jective agrees with its substantive, we will be too apt to snap and 
snarl at poor Master ThickskuU, venting upon him the vials of 
wrath which are more justly due to our own indiscretion. 

It is a mistake to hold that the dominie should be a man of a 
very mild temper. I w^ould rather he had a hot-spirited temper, 
provided he can command and regulate it. But it is bad for a 
dominie to have an irritable temper, which makes him cross and 
severe to little faults of thoughtlessness and carelessness. How 
manj^ even of the best and wisest of schoolmasters must feel 
guilty as they read these words of the little book which I have 



38 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

mentioned at the beginning of this chapter! "We have been on 
our knees, confessing humbly that we are as awkward in heav- 
enly things, as unfit for the Heavenly Jerusalem, as Biddy and 
Mike, and the little beggar-gh-l on our door-steps, are for our 
parlors. We have deplored our errors daily, hourly, and con- 
fessed 'that the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the 
burden of them is intolerable,' and then we draw near in the Sac- 
rament to that Incarnate Divinity whose infinite love covers all 
our imperfections with the mantle of His perfections. But when 
we return, do we take our servants and children by the throat 
because they are as untrained and awkward and careless in 
earthly things as we have been in heavenly ? Does no remem- 
brance of Christ's infinite patience temper our impatience, when 
we have spoken seventy times seven, and our words have been 
disregarded?" 

It is indeed well for dominies and for all men to be angry with 
the thief and the liar and the bully. But it is not well that we 
should be cross and sharp with little boys who are not so perfect 
and wise as we are. They take it all in faith, as a matter of 
course, perhaps consoling themselves by thinking that, when they 
get whiskers and tailcoats, they too will be able to scold and 
bully those who may be set under them. This is what they learn 
from our needless anger. Ah I better for these little ones that 
they never in their lives made an adjective agree with its sub- 
stantive, than that they learned that lesson. 

Let us then, my brother dominies, strive bravely and perse- 
veringly against this our besetting sin. Let us wrestle with the 
devil, in this matter a more homely conflict than some may im- 
agine. For it is well known that, considering it necessary to 
keep pace with the spirit of the age, the infernal potentate has 
studied physiology; and I believe it to be true, that he most 
surely and sorely assails our tempers through our stomachs. 
So, if we would be kind and patient to our pupils, we must avoid 
the familiar temptations of the flesh, by which being bound, so 
many well-meaning but dyspeptic people are for a time delivered 
pver to the power of Satan. 



ROBERT HOPE MON CRIEFF. 39 

Above all, let us avoid drinking. This is one of the greatest 
dangers to which a dominie is exposed. We get into low spirits, 
and cannot bravely face the wear and tear of onr work ; and 
then comes the craving for some stimulant, something which for 
a moment may give us strength and vivacity, or may drown our 
gloomy thoughts in a false joy that gives place too soon to a 
darker and more hopeless melancholy. But the temptation is 
indeed powerful, and thus have many of us foundered on this 
rock, who began their career with a fair breeze and a smiling sky. 
Therefore, though when I am ill I take wine or castor-oil, or 
whatever will be good for me, when I am well I no more touch 
strong drink than I do castor-oil. God has given us stimulants 
from which there is no reaction— light, air and water; and these 
I freely make use of. But as for wine and spirits, I am a Recha- 
bite; and I would have all healthy men, and especially all boys, 
do likewise. Is it not sad to see even children fed with poison by 
foolishly indulgent parents ? But I say no more on this subject, 
lest this work be mistaken for the prize tale of a temperance society. 

The sum, then, of my chapter is, that we have all peculiar 
dangers which make the gate of heaven to us as it were the eye 
of a needle, and that as it is hard for a rich man not to love riches, 
so it is hard for a dominie not to be proud and self-willed and harsh 
and unjust. Let us not conceal it, my brother dominies, least of 
all from ourselves. Let us learn the great lesson of wisdom, to 
know ourselves, and do the great deed of virtue, to amend our- 
selves. And let us not be discouraged by the failure which must 
ever meet our bravest struggles to be better, but let us strive for 
the measure of success which is denied to none who seek it truly 
and faithfully. The flesh indeed may be weak, but let the spirit 
be willing. For one hour only we must watch and pray; and 
thereafter the Lord giveth His beloved sleep. 

Yes, it is the lesson of Gethsemane that every dominie should 
diligently learn from the great Teacher. To watch and pray is 
our armor against all the dangers of the world, the flesh and the 
devil : which armor, if we use aright, pride and anger and intem- 
perance will have little power to wound us. 



40 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE, 



V. — THE WOKK OF THE DOMINIE. 

His licuvc'ii coiiiiiiouccs ere the world Ix; });ist. 

Goldsmith. 

I AM afraid that the chapters immediately preceding this do 
not represent my profession in the favorable light in which I wish 
to put it. I have made the life of dominies to appear very unen- 
viable. We would seem to be indeed unhappy men, social Ishmael- 
ites, with every hand against us, snubbed and vexed by parents, 
worried by pupils. But it would be far from my purpose if these 
dark colors are to be taken for a fair painting of the life of a 
dominie. I have dwelt upon the shadows, not because there is 
no sunshine, but, I suppose, because it is always easier to grum- 
ble than to rejoice. And by way of antidote to the last two 
chapters, I devote this to the special and unqualified laudation 
of the work of the dominie. 

It is a most important work, for the character of the next 
generation will to a great extent depend upon the dominies of 
this. And it is a work far from being so commonplace and ig- 
noble as some people think ; on the contrary, it is one which calls 
into exercise every nerve and sinew of mental power, and requires 
the use of the peculiar talents of nearly every other honorable 
profession. 

The profession of preaching in a white necktie may be more 
highly esteemed than ours; but we too, as I have already said, 
are daily called upon to preach and exhort, to stimulate virtue 
and to reprove sin. Our discourses must, for the most part, be 
extemporary, and our divinity must be sound, or wo will work 
greater harm, I venture to say with the leave of the R(H;ord,t\\Sin 
all the latitudinarian Essayists and ritualistic Bishops. Only 
we have this enormous advantage over our brethren of the pews 
and pulpit, that we need not waste our energies in the study and 
exposition of controversial tlleolog3^ We have the tortures and 
imprisonments of an inquisition to enforce our dogmas and 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 41 

crush skepticism. Woe to the presumptuous youth who dared say 
that the earth moved round the sun it" I choose to affirm that it 
didn't. I should soon make an auto-da-fe of him ! 

Then we must be practical statesmen. We must be able to or- 
ganize and legislate. AVe must make constitutions for our little 
empires, and laws which shall not only protect the weak against 
the strong, but shall regulate and encourage labor, and punish 
idleness, thus solving the highest problems of political econ- 
omy. Tiiough again it must be borne in mind, that we are not 
troubled by factious opposition to our measures. With Lion 
as my standing army, I should like to see any young Radical 
attempting to limit my prerogative. (See Chapter IX.) 

And the mention of Lion reminds me that we must have many 
of the distinctive qualities of soldiers and lawyers. We must be 
able to drill and discipline our Lilliputian armies, to give the 
word of command with decision and promptitude, to say "Go" 
to a boy in such a manner that he goeth without further ques- 
tion. If we rise to a generalship in the profession, we will require 
skill and knowledge to handle our columns, and to know the 
enemy's strength and resources. We must take care that our 
officers obey our orders — that our divisions move to the attack 
in due regularity— that the enemy's works be not assailed before 
his outposts are carried — that too strong a. force be not sent 
against the Greek aorists, nor too weak a one against the 
pons asinorum — that raw soldiers be not too recklessly exposed 
to a fire of irregular verbs, nor old veterans cooped up too long 
in propria quae maribus}'^ There are many celebrated schools in 
England which have suffered, and are suffering, because their 
commanders are ignorant of the true principles of scholastic 
strategy, and carry on their war against ignorance according to 
old-fashioned rules which have been exploded by the prowess of 
young Napoleons of the rod, and the invention of new fire-arms 
destined to supersede the old Brown Besses of their own school- 
days. 

We must be lawyers too, and possess the judicial faculty in a 
high degree. We are daily called upon to preside at criminal 



42 THE TEACHER IN LITEBATUBE. 

trials in wliich we conduct the prosecution, agree upon the ver- 
dict and pronounce the sentence. And this we have to do upon 
evidence which can never be quite relied upon, and often upon no 
evidence at all; for, except in very heinous cases, the right- 
minded dominie will encourage his boys not to allow themselves 
to be subpoenaed against one another, and will, above all, dis- 
countenance the practice of laying informations. Our consciences 
would be like flint if we could use this tremendous power hastily 
or unjustly, and not feel remorse. Some dominies there are, I 
grieve to say, who are not fit to sit in judgment, since they hold 
every suspect guilty, unless he can prove his innocence after 
the manner of the French courts of law. I have known a school- 
master flog a boy into falsely accusing himself of theft, upon 
mere suspicion; and when the truth was discovered, severely 
blame the innocent offender for deceiving him. Doubtless the 
boy forgot all about it very soon ; but let us hope that the 
dominie's sleep was restless for many nights after. It is a good 
rule for us to cherish a reluctance to condemn, and to uphold 
the good old maxim that an accused person is innocent till he be 
proved guilty. But to know proof from suspicion is sometimes 
hard. 

Your dominie should be also somewhat of a doctor, at least if 
he keeps boarders. Boys are troubled with a variety of strange 
diseases; and it will be well for the dominie to know when to call 
in the real doctor, and when to administer tar-and-water on his 
own responsibility. This is an excellent medicine. I have had 
some experience in its use, and I should like to doctor with it 
some young Oxford and Cambridge gentlemen who are so often 
seger. Besides this sovereign remedy and disinfectant, he, or his 
wife, should know whenand how to apply alimited pharmacopoeia, 
that by the timely exhibition of gruel or senna-tea in Master 
Smith's case, he may spare that young gentleman's parents the 
necessity of rendering tribute to the physician and apothecary. 
And I need not point out that the nature of a certain branch of 
the dominie's duties renders necessary for him an empirical knowl- 
edge of the elements^ of anatomy and the structure of the human 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 43 

frame, without which knowledge he will not be able to perform that 
branch of his duties with due efficiency, I do not lay much stress 
on this knowledge, however, as I believe it is often acquired and 
put into practical use with a rope's end, or otherwise, by cap- 
tains of small vessels and other intelligent laymen who may have 
to do with boys. 

Besides, the good dominie must be able to read human nature, 
and to read it, too, from imperfect characters, in various kinds 
of type. He must know the m-ystery of the human passions, and 
be skillful to work with them as with precious ore. And not a 
few other talents and accomplishments he must have, which 
many men who are better paid and more highly thought of for 
their work may never attain to, and yet make names and for- 
tunes. 

I don't dwell much upon his stock-in-trade of Latin and Greek, 
and mathematics, and history, and geography, and so forth, 
because his success as a teacher will not depend so much on his 
learning, as on the way in which he makes use of it. The man 
with the largest capital is not the most successful in business, 
but he who is most active and prudent and painstaking in laying 
it out. But people, in choosing an instructor for their sons, sel- 
dom think of this, and generally prefer one with the most impos- 
ing array of letters after his name. 

Thus it will be seen that our work is a noble and a worthy one. 
But more, it is a happy work; it has pleasures that far outweigh 
its vexations, though hitherto I have dwelt more upon theselatter. 
Ought not a life to be happy and healthy which is spent among 
happy and healthy boys? There is a Paradise upon earth, from 
the gates of which the hard, proud, worldly heart is repelled by 
the words burning in letters of fire, "Except ye be as one of 
these." Near these gates do we dwell, and many a glad glimpse 
we catch of the fair land within. Many a ray of sunlight is thrown 
across our path by the pure thoughts and the kindly words and 
the honest joys of boyhood. 

This very day, as I was going to punish a timid, shrinking boy 
who had committed a grievous offense against my Medo-Persic 



44 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

laws, his classmates begged him off, and by a large majority 
agreed to learn an extra lesson if he were not punished. And 
lately, when I was going to punish a boy for an injury done to a 
companion, that companion came to me privately, and entreated 
me to let him take the punishment instead. I and other dom- 
inies could tell many such stories. Are these things not sunshine 
to our hearts? 

And when a boy has been naughty and is sorry, and bears his 
punishment manfully and meekly, and listens to my reproof, and 
does not sulk nor spite me, and tells me that he will not do it 
again, and I know that he is speaking sincerely, is this not good 
and gladdening? 

And sometimes a father or mother comes to talk with me about 
one of my pupils, and is not supercilious nor prejudiced nor 
blindly affectionate, but treats me with respect and considera- 
tion, and believes that I am doing my best for the boy, and is 
grateful to me for it, and enters into my difficulties, and shows 
readiness to aid my efforts. Will this not comfort and strengthen 
me in my work ? 

Or when men, who were once my boys, and worried and vexed 
me, and were whipped and rebuked by me, come back to thank 
me for what I have done for them, will that not make me happy? 
It is a pleasant thing to know that, even if they do not appre- 
ciate your interest in them as boys, there are very few men who 
have other than a kindly feeling towards their old tyrants. I 
believe that only bad men look back with hate upon the strictest 
of schoolmasters. I have met once — and, thank Heaven, only 
once — with a man who spoke bitterly and spitefully of a highly 
respected extant dominie, who had given him a well-deserved 
thrashing many years before. I did not seek that individual's 
further acquaintance. 

And it is sweet and joyful for us at all times to be able to re- 
joice over boys who are gradually improving, taking an interest 
in their studies, coming even to love them, overcoming bad hab- 
its, trying to do right. This is what we may see daily, if weopen 
our eyes ; and if we see other boys doing ill, we should not grieve 



nOBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 45 

overmuch, but hope and pray that God in His own good time, 
and by other lips than ours, may teach them those lessons which 
we cannot make them learn. 

The life of the faithful and wise dominie should indeed be a 
happy one. For — I say it at the risk of seeming tedious and 
commonplace — the happiest life is that which is spent in doing 
good. 



VI.— DAY-DREAMS OF THE DOMINIE. 

Fecisti nos, Doinine, ad to; et iiiquietum est cor nostrum donoc 
requiescat in te.* — Augustine. 

I HAVE read a book called the The Day-dreams of a School- 
niaster,^^ which seems to me the pleasantest book ever w^ritten 
about dominies. This dry work of mine does not aim at pre- 
senting the reader with dreams, but with hard facts which I have 
seen and would speak of; nevertheless it will not be out of 
place if I try to paint some of the dreams which come to me 
when my day's work is done, and my tired thoughts leave the 
stern lessons of this world, and fl}' to the kindly sports of fancy- 
land. 

I like to imagine myself retired from the cares of dominieship 
ending my days in peace and leisure. I shut my eyes on work and 
care, and a vision arises before me of a cottage, at the porch of 
which, covered with gay roses and gentle jasmine, I am sitting on 
a summer evening, watching the red glory of the sunset change 
into the solemnly beautiful hues of twilight. Behind my cottage 
is a little wood, sweet with violets, and before it a grassy bank, 
sloping down to a sparkling brook. And near me is the sea, and 
around me are the grand blue hills among which I spent my boy- 
hood. And as I sit and hear the babbling of the brook, and the 
singing of the birds, and the lowing of the cattle, and the cheery 
talk of men and women returning from their daily toil, I know 



* Bring us, O God, to Thee ; and troubled is our heart until it rests in Thee. 



46 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

that lam far from the bustle of cities, and the hard hearts of 
men hastening to be rich. But the chief charms of my visions 
are the lady who sits by my side and the children who cling to 
our knees, or .toddle gravely about us, or sport merrily around 
the cottage, never going so far away that we cannot hear their 
clear voices and happy laughter. She is young and fair, and loves 
me more than all the world. And Latin grammar is a mystery 
to her, and she would tremble at the very idea of reading a paper 
before the Social Science Association. But she knows how to rule 
over our domestic economy with care and prudence, and how to 
teach our children those things which they learn better from her 
loving instinct than by all the systems of the most learned dom- 
inies in the world. She knows, too, how to spread a happy sun- 
shine of love through our home, which makes it a little temple on 
earth, and scares away the evil spirits begot of darkness and 
moody solitude. Tlius, gently and carelessly, I pass away the 
summer evening of my life, her fair hand clasped in mine, her 
silken tresses resting softly on my shoulders, her sw^eet face look- 
ing trustfully into my eyes. I am contented and at leisure; my 
wifeiskind and beautiful, and my children are honest and healthy, 
and God has blessed us; what can I desire more? But I open 
my eyes, and lo ! it is all a dream, for lam sitting in my cheerless 
study, the table untidily littered with papers, and the grim vol- 
umes in the library covered with dust. And then comes upon me 
with double force, the unutterable sadness of being alone. This 
is why I would be willing to exchange places with that naughty 
little boy whom I had to punish so severely this afternoon. His 
tears have doubtless dried long ago, for he has a mother and 
brothers and sisters to whom he can tell all his troubles, and in 
their mirth and kindness forget them; while I — I must bear my 
share of work and woe alone. 

Once I thought that this dream of mine about a home, or 
part of it, would become more than a dream. While young and 
full of hope, I met at a seaside town, where I was passing my 
holidays, a woman whom I loved, and fain would have made my 
wife. I saw her to be fair, and thought she was true. And she 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRTEFF. 47 

said that she loved me, and would ever love me; but she lied. 
For when it was told her that I was only a dominie — that the 
work of my life was to worry and be worried by boys — she killed 
the younjr ]ove in her heart. Ah ! that she could have bid mine 
die as easily! And then she married a subaltern officer, about 
whose gentility Mrs. Grundy made no question. It is too com- 
monplace a story to interest the reader, and I will not dwell upon 
it. I have tried to forgive and forget her; but when I take from 
its hiding-place the crumbling skeleton of a rose which she gave 
me as we walked by the side of a quiet river many, many years 
ago, a fierce bitter longing rises in my heart, and I pray God to 
let me wet the withered flower with tears. 

Thus it is that I have lived unmarried all my life, and that, if 
my visionary cottage be ever built elsewhere than in my mind's 
eye, its only tenant will be a cynical, grumbling old bachelor. So 
this dream of mine begins in pleasure and ends in pain. Away 
with it, and call up another which will soothe and comfort me 
without re-opening old wounds. 

The other day, when bothered and worried and wearied by the 
thoughtlessness of boys and the foolishness of parents, I sat 
down in my easy-chair, and had a dream of a school in a far-off 
Utopia, of which I was head-master. In that school all the boys 
were good and happy and healthy, and all the teachers were wise 
and kind and earnest. And the boys, moreover, had all frank 
eyes and patched jackets, and spent their play-hours not in 
lounging about streets or smoking cigars in secret corners, but 
in running and leaping and shouting and laughing, and suchlike 
vulgar enjoyments. But they all learned their lessons, and at- 
tended to what they were taught; and if any of them ever were 
punished, it afterwards turned out that he had suffered not for 
his own fault, but heroically screening a companion. And now 
and then a boy did a naughty thing, and was sorry for it; and 
oh! how sweet was that repentance — just to relieve the monot- 
ony of perfect virtue. And so I could be familiar and yet strict 
with all the boys; and tho^^ loved me, and made me their friend 
and comforter in every little trouble. And their parents respected 



48 THE TEACHER IN LITERATVRE. 

me, and took an interest in my work, but did not worry me by 
being meddlesome overmuch. And I was kind and patient and 
cheerful, and lived long to see the seed given me to sow on earth 
sprout up to bear goodly and manifold fruit. And alas ! this, 
too, was a dream. 

Then I try to dream that I am a boy once more, to realize 
what it is to be ruled, that I may learn how to rule. I dream of 
the buoyant spirit which I once felt and rejoiced in, but which, 
alas! comes no more. I dream of the zest with which I would 
share boj'ish sports, and the blessed tears in which I would drown 
boyish griefs. I dream that I am loved by boyish friends with a 
true and pure love which I have never found in man. 1 dream of 
myself rising up in honest wrath to avenge the oppressed, or 
bearing torture without a murmur, rather than betray my com- 
panion. I dream of the pleasure that one kind word from one I 
loved and looked up to would give me, and the pride with which 
I would serve and obey such a one. But, ah! of all dreams, 
these are the most unreal. They come but to mock me, and fade 
away when they have filled me with a bitter yearning. I cannot 
make them my own, these glimpses of youth. 

" Sudden strays of recollection, glimmering from the depths of time, 
Fleeting into misty darkness from the feeble grasp of rhyme.'"* 

They have gone from me forever, like the companions with whom 
1 try to dream that I am sporting once more, but whose hearts 
and hands are no longer mine, since their ways in life have taken 
them apart from me. Some I still know, but they are not the 
same as once I knew them. Some I have lost sight of or forgot- 
ten. Some are dead to me, their hearts being seared by the red- 
hot iron of sin; and some, more happily dead, sleep in the quiet 
of English clmrchyards, beneath the vineyards or the palms of 
other lands, below the waves of the cruel sea. So this dream, too, 
brings sorrow rather than joy. 

I often indulge in another dream which is better than all these, 
not only because it is sweet to the mind and healing to the heart, 
but because it must one day come true. It is a dream which is 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 49 

familiar to me, and comes to me at all times and in all places, 
chiefly in hours of thoughtful solitude, but often in crowded par- 
lors and scenes of so-called gaiety. Call me not sentimentally 
melancholy, that I love to dream calmly and fearlessly of the 
day when I shall be lying beneath the green grass and the gentle 
daisies, at peace with myself and the world. The storms and 
sunbeams of life will struggle over and around that quiet spot, 
but nought will hurt or harm me, for I shall be at rest; and my 
Father shall have folded me in His arms, and forever wiped all 
tears from off my face. But I dare not be proud or angry now, 
when I think how little men will esteem me then, and how little 
there will be to vex me there. I think, too, with anxious care, 
that some will live to curse that humble grave of mine, for words 
spoken hastily and bitterly — words that may bear evil seed for 
all time, till the Lord come and destroy the tares from the face of 
the earth. And I think with joy and hope, that if I lay up such 
treasures in my life, some may come to bless me, and to drop 
a tear of remembrance on the flowers that grow above my 
head. 



VII.— ON OTHER DOMINIES. 

" Public hackneys in the schooling trade, 
Machines themselves, and governed by a clock." 

COWPER. 

I COMMENCE this chapter with some diffidence. We dominies 
have so seldom a good word to say of each other, that I fear I 
may not do justice to my fellow-craftsmen. This is a sad fact, 
but a fact nevertheless, and the reason of it clear enough. We are 
so accustomed to. have our own way, and hear our own tongues 
going, that we do not make good society for each other. I 
believe the same rule holds good with crowned heads and coun- 
try parsons. If there were a dozen emperors of Abyssinia living 
and ruling within a convenient distance of one another, we 

2 T. L.— 4 



50 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

should find them by no means peaceable neighbors; and in the 
same way we dominies, so far as not bound over by Mrs. Grundy 
to keep the peace, are given to sneer at the attainments and ex- 
ertions of our brethren. I shall try, however, in this chapter to 
forget my professional feelings, and to speak charitably as well 
as truthfully. 

I believe that the rude popular idea of a dominie is somewhat 
vague ; a wig and a loud voice, with a tendency to quote Greek 
and Latin, being his only recognizable characteristics. But those 
who have dipped into stories of school life cannot fail to be more 
enlightened. They must have realized in their mind's eye, on the 
authority of such books, four distinct types as existing in the 
genus Dominie. These four types are obtained by the subdivision 
of schoolmasters into head-masters and assistants, and by a fur- 
ther distinction of public and private being made between the 
schools in which lie their respective spheres of action. 

The highest type is of course the head-master of a large pub- 
lic school. This head-master is truly a most admirable and won- 
derful being, if we may believe the story books through which 
alone he is known to that enormous majority of our countrymen 
who have not learned cricket and verse-making at a public 
school. He is an Olympian Jupiter, moving in awful state 
through time-honored oaken chambers and gray cloisters, and 
with stern and serene equanimity launching his birchen thunder- 
bolts at trembling delinquents. No doubt of his infallibility is 
ever allowed to enter our minds; no suspicion that his temper 
may be sometimes irritable, or his digestion out of order. It is 
impossible to define clearly the corporeal image of him which 
rises before us. We know little about his appearance, and that 
little dazzles us. His private life is equally sacred and mysterious. 
No profane historian has yet ventured to follow him into the 
secret cell where it is to be hoped he sometimes ventures, to put 
on his shooting-coat and slippers, and smoke a pipe, and read 
Punch. True, Tom Brown^^ has dared once, and once only to 
introduce us to the dread Doctor in the midst of his family; but 
all of Tom Brown's followers have shrunk from imitating their 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. ■ 51 

leader's irreverence. No, in their pages he stands before us 
constantly in cap and gown; robed, moreover, in the dignity 
of boundless learning and power, forever a king of boys and a 
mighty man upon earth, till the day when his pride and his 
power shall suddenly have an end, when for sins of his youth not 
yet duly expiated, he shall be seized upon by the locum tenens^^ 
for the time being of our head of the church, and, in spite of his 
pitiful cries of nolo episcopari, nolo,nolo,^^ shall be remorselessly 
translated to a certain place in the House of Lords, reserved as a 
St. Helena for the despots of youth, thenceforth to live and die 
unpitied, unfeared, unknown. In this case. Heaven grant him 
strength to keep his views on the Pentateuch and all other sub- 
jects to himself. 

The assistant master of a public school is nearly always repre- 
sented as an earnest and boyish young clergyman of unexcep- 
tionable morals and manners, and of strong opinions of the kind 
known as muscular Christian. He is addicted to playing cricket 
with the boys, and has favorites among them, whom he invites 
into his private room for confidential chats. He has a great hor- 
ror of everything deceitful, and a sharp eye for all sorts of boyish 
tricks, not to speak of a preternaturally quick ear for false quan- 
tities. This is almost all we of the outer world know about him; 
but if he is half as perfect as he is painted, he must indeed be a 
most estimable and amiable individual. Perhaps his pupils are 
not always of this opinion, however, till after the period of their 
pupildom at least; for although he is fond of handling the bat, 
he would also seem to be an adept in the use of the cane; and it 
may be supposed that he has an enormous waste-paper bas- 
ket, in which he keeps all the Georgics he gives to be written out 
as poenas}'^ 

The conventional head-master or "principal" of a private 
school is not by any means such an awful being as the ruler of 
a great school. The former wants much of both the power 
and dignity of the latter, and is often suspected of being liable to 
the common weaknesses of humanity. We hear of him making 
jokes and taking snuff. He has parlor boarders, who report 



52 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

that he eats a good dinner, and takes a nap after it. He does 
not confine himself to birching heinous offenders in secret state, 
but pervades the whole school, executing extemporary justice 
with canes, rulers, and other vulgar instruments; besides which, 
he is given to getting angry, and thereupon to scolding and cuff- 
ing. He always is very polite to parents, often a little afraid of 
the big boys, and generally very fierce and terrible to the little 
ones, frowning at them, and calling them " sir" in away which is 
extremely appalling. He has his good-humored moods too, and 
sometimes gives the boys a half-holiday when he wants to go 
fishing, or has been promised a new pupil. He is invariably 
blessed with a terribly sharp and sensible wife, who sees that 
there is plenty of suet in the dumplings, and not too much butter 
on the bread, and who passes the greater part of her existence 
alternately in running about from cupboard to cupboard with a 
bunch of keys, and in sitting over a pile of stockings requiring, 
though not always deserving, to be darned. By her aid our 
worthy schoolmaster is generally able to retire from business in 
due course of time, and passes the rest of his life in a far-off un- 
known lotus-land, where dwell the dominies who have had 
enough of scourging and scolding. It is remarked that nobody 
except Sterne ever saw a dead donkey. But who ever saw and 
spoke to, in the flesh, a retired dominie? 

But if the woful tales which the story-books tell us of ushers 
be true, it is a mystery to me how the junior ranks of the profes- 
sion are filled up. One would think that there are not enough 
spiritless scarecrows in Britain to teach its middle-class youth. 
For the usher is uniformly represented as a pale and interesting 
young man, dressed in seedy black, who has seen better days, and 
is not likely ever to see much worse ones. He is snubbed by his 
employer and his pupils alike, placed between two fires. He is 
not expected to have any opinions of his own. It is darkly whis- 
pered that it is part of his duty to eat the fat of the parlor 
boarders, and to brush the boots upon occasions. Were it not 
for his usefulness in this respect, the mistress of the house doesn't 
see what's the good of him, and wonders why her husband's 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF, 53 

strong arm and loud voice can't put as much learning as is at all 
desirable into his boys' heads. The boys daren't move or utter 
a sound before the master himself, but they have their rcA^enge 
on the usher. They chalk the back of his coat, and put stones in 
his bed. They joke with him about his personal appearance. 
They revile and slander his relatives, real and fictitious. Under 
these circumstances, it is truly miraculous that the unhappy usher 
does not forthwith make away with himself; but in his life, as 
set forth by story writers, there is at least one bright spot of 
hope. The principal's daughter is very likely to be attracted by 
his melancholy and interesting looks. The usual results — for de- 
scription of which, seethe Minerva \)ve^^, passim — follow. The 
course of true love runs not smoothly for a little, troubled by the 
suspicious watchfulness of mamma and some of the sharper pu- 
pils, who perhaps try to jest with the mild usher on the subject of 
his attachment, and to their amazement get a box on the ear, 
and find that love can turn the lamb into a lion. At length, if no 
green-eyed monster blight their happy love, things go so far that 
bhe young lady threatens to starve herself, or gives mysterious 
hints as to the slimy bottom of the mill-pond. Thereupon papa 
relents; and when the pupils return after the next holidays to 
resume their studies, they find their late victim prepared to 
tyrannize over them as son-in-law and partner. 

These are the types of dominie whom we meet with in story- 
books. Do we meet with them in real life? Not often, I think. I, 
who have known many dominies, have found them to be much 
the same as other men, of many classes and characters, wise and 
foolish, grave and gay — good, bad and indifferent. Let me try 
to call up before the reader's eye some samples of the profession. 

First, we have Mr. A,, called by his irreverent pupils 
•' Stiff Dick," not so much because his Christian name is Richard, 
and his nature inflexible, as because his hard, mottled face bears 
some resemblance to a certain compound of that name, the in- 
gredients of which are well known to housekeepers of boarding- 
schools. From this it will be inferred that Mr. A.'s appearance 
is not prepossessing, and he certainly does not attempt to im- 



54 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

prove it by any external aid. For an incredible number of years 
he is fabled never to have been seen out of the same grim, uld- 
fashioned suit of black, upon which, nevertheless, no spot or stain 
is at any time visible. But no king robed in purple and adorned 
with barbaric pearl and gold could be an object of more terror 
to his subjects. Stiff Dick is stern, exact, inexorable. Alas ! for 
the unhappy juvenile who, with trembling knees, beholds that 
cold gray eye fasten upon him, and hears that hard, immovable 
voice speaking in hisearsaRhadamanthine^*^ sentence from which 
there can be no appeal. Woe betide the boy who enters Mr. A.'s 
classroom with his hat on, or is detected whispering to his neigh- 
bor in school. Thrice fortified with oak and triple brass must his 
breast be, likewise his shoulders with towels or old copy-books, 
who dares venture on an untimely joke in that presence. How 
his pupils rejoice if, by any lucky chance, he is unable to do his 
duty! This seldom happens though, for Mr. A. is one of those 
unhealthy-looking men who are never ill. For years together he 
will never be absent; but day after day, punctual to a moment, 
he is at his post, to put the same iron yoke on the necks of him- 
self and his pupils. His enemies say he is cruel and unsympathiz- 
ing towards boys ; but one thing they cannot say, that he does 
not make them learn and behave themselves so long as they are 
under him. One effect of his so-called cruelty is, that he scarcely 
ever requires to punish his boys. More kindly dominies dribble 
out a far greater quantity of thrashing and scolding than he 
does, and yet do not produce one-half so much order and dili- 
gence. He acts on the principle of concentrating his forces, and 
crushing the enemy once and for all. He is never seen by his boys 
to smile, or heard by them to utter an unnecessary word. His 
mood is invariable. He never allows either passion or good- 
nature to interfere with justice. And thus he is admired by sen- 
sible parents, and feared by boys as a good disciplinarian and 
successful teacher. At all events, he knows what he is teach- 
ing, and teaches it. So many dominies do not know what they 
are teaching, and teach it — the devil's lie — that this world is 
ruled by chance and caprice, and not by the strictest and most 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 55 

unalterable laws, which if a man break, he shall have pain and 
sorrow. 

A very different kind of dominie is Mr. B., known in his school 
as '< Billy." He is a dandified young dominie altogether incapa- 
ble of sternness. Hismannerof dealing with boys is to fondle them 
and encourage them to be familiar, until they have grown un- 
governable, and then he gets into a rage and calls them names. 
He has favorites among them, pretty, civil little boys who toady 
him to his face, and laugh at him behind his back. He deludes 
himself that he is greatly respected and loved by his pupils, 
therein laboring under a wonderful hallucination. But he does 
not suppose that scholastic pursuits are his proper sphere in life. 
He is a man of fashion. He goes out to tea-parties, and drawls 
out polite nothings in the ears of young ladies. You should see 
what attention he pays to the mammas and sisters of his pupils 
when he can get a chance. Billy has certainly mistaken his voca- 
tion. His colleagues and his boys for once agree in thinking him 
a fool. It need not be observed that there is one strong dissen- 
tient from this opinion. 

Mr. C. is a man who should never have been a dominie. He is 
too much of a genius. He might do for a teacher at a university, 
where I am given to understand that the professor has nothing 
to do but talk, while the students all listen with the utmost at- 
tention and deference; but he is not a good teacher of boys. 
They, his boys, however, highly approve of his method. He does 
not trouble them much with text-books or set lessons, but de- 
livers to them long high-flown discourses on any subject that 
comes into his head. Upon the slightest provocation, he recites 
to them pages of his own poetry, throwing back his head and 
rolling out the words in a way that sounds very fine. You will 
see a class of little boys staring at him with great awe, wonder- 
ing what it is all about. He likes this, and thinks he is car- 
rying them along with his enthusiasm. By-and-by, though, they 
get accustomed to it, and amuse themselves in his class by whis- 
pering, giggling and pricking each other with pins; so both par- 
ties are pleased, the road to knowledge being made pleasant and 



56 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

easy, though it may be doubted by the discerning spectator if 
much progress is made thereon. Occasionally he cannot resist 
the temptation of lying back in his chair and giving himself up 
to a poetic reverie, which of course his boys take advantage of 
for purposes which may be imagined. Thus it is that Mr. C, 
though the author of many clever books, is not a good teacher. 
He thinks he is, but in these matters vanity goes a long way. 
Vanity is the dominie's besetting sin, and in this respect at least 
Mr. C. is a true dominie. 

It would be well if he taught his pupils no worse lessons than 
those which are contained in his poetry. It would be well if they 
could tell no tales of him lying like a beast in the gutter, unable 
to reach his own door. It would be well if scandal-mongering 
young gentlemen, returning at eleven o'clock from a juvenilescene 
of dissipation, had not met him reeling along the street, arm-in- 
arm with a manifest son of Belial, both flown w4th insolence and 
whisky. Eccentricities of genius, some call this; eccentricity of 
Satan, say I. Of all professions, the teaching of boys should 
be kept clear of such genius, unless ballasted by principle and 
common sense. 

Mr. C.'s great friend is Mr. D., a foreigner. We old-fashioned 
dominies have a great prejudice against foreign teachers, and not 
without reason. As a rule, they are unsatisfactory in many 
points. Mr. D. is a very good example of the class. He looks 
down upon the rest of us as slow and prejudiced. He has a large 
stock of theories on education, which we, in our insular stupidity, 
do not see the merit of. He has a theory for communicating 
knowledge in a particularly rapid way; and this theory seems so 
far successful, that his pupils forget what he has taught them 
with as much readiness as he professes to make them acquire it. 
He has a theory for maintaining discipline in his classes without 
punishment. He has a theory for gaining the respect of his pu- 
pils. He has a theory for inoculating them with a spontaneous 
love of all the virtues. And you should hear him groaning over 
the depravity of the juvenile heart which does not appreciate him 
and his theories. 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 57 

One disagreeable peculiarity of Mr. D. is that he is always 
laboring under pecuniary difficulties, and wanting to borrow 
money. It is very distressing that people won't give large in- 
comes to teachers of languages; and in this sad case what can 
be more natural than that a person of a theoretical and imagin- 
ative disposition should be in nowise hindered from launching 
out into expenses in the matter of clothes, suppers and cigars, as 
it were obtaining from society on credit the luxuries that she 
denies him as a right? And if society, as represented in the per- 
sons of deluded tradesmen, refuse to recognize the justice of this 
reasoning, and threaten actions of law and other practical argu- 
ments, money must be borrowed — the Utopian age, when clever 
men shall have as much as they please of that vile dross, not yet 
having come. Wherefore Mr. D. is shunned by his brother dom- 
inies, except C, who never has any money to lend. 

Both D. and C. are held in great contempt by Mr. E., who has 
been described as the " heaven-born dominie." Pallas-like, he is 
fabled to have been born with a Latin grammar in one hand and 
a cane in the other. No one can imagine him ever to have been a 
boy, or anything else than a dominie; and yet a boy he must 
have been, and a very naughty boy too, so sharp is he at finding 
out all the misdoings of the boys who have the ill-fortune to be 
placed under him. It is a grand sight to see that energetic little 
man managing a class of a hundred boys. Not a word dare one 
of them speak, not a trick can they play ; for Mr. E. seems to have 
eyes all round his head, and comes down upon them in amoment. 
Boys are his element„ I don't know that he has any great affec- 
tion for them, but he understands them thoroughly, and can rule 
them with a rod of iron. Not an unkindly man, though. He can 
be gentle and patient with the timid boys; and though he is 
sharp and severe with the naughty ones, he has generally a laugh 
or a joke to sweeten the stripes which he inflicts. So, many of 
the boys like him, and all respect him. They take a pride in 
boasting of his sharpness, and of the vigor with which he can 
thrash. When they meet him on the street, they look at him with 
great awe. He is a public character to them, and they think thera- 



58 THE TEACHER IN LITERATVBE. 

selves highly honored if he lifts his stick to his hat in return for 
their humble salutation. How they would be astonished if they 
saw what a meek and altogether ordinary individual their tyrant 
is at home, where Mrs. E. looks after him very sharply, I can tell 
you! 

Do you know Dr. F. ? (Ph.D., University of Swillingen. Price 
£20.) The secret of F.'s life, which his boys more than half sus- 
pect, is that he is afraid of them. A man of low birth and scanty 
education, he feels no confidence in giving orders to the sons of 
men at whose table he could not dine without reverence and nerv- 
ousness. He could hector about the little boys if he had not the 
fear of their mammas before his eyes, but he feels unfit to rule his 
older pupils; so he does all he can to make things go easy. He 
condescends ! a dangerous experiment, if you have nothing to 
condescend from. He tries to imitate Dr. Arnold, and other great 
and good dominies, quite forgetting that all men are not Dr. Ar- 
nolds. He calls his boys "you fellows," and gets laughed at by 
them for his pains, and not always behind his back even. He tries 
to dress himself like them, in soi-disant fashionable apparel, and 
talks to them familiarly about their pursuits and pleasures. But 
it won't do. Unless you have a character which will bear the 
strictest investigation, you must never give your pupils cause to 
suspect that you are a creature of like passions with themselves. 
That gorgeous waistcoat which Dr. F. is fond of wearing would 
alone be enough to destroy his influence with the elder boys. He 
sometimes plays at cricket with them, and plays extremely ill. 
This is also a great mistake. A dominie should never do any- 
thing before his pupils which he can't do better than, or at least 
as well, as they. I don't know that the Prince of Wales would 
much increase his popularity among learned men, if he were to 
undertake to deliver a course of lectures upon the Origin of Spe- 
cies; certainly his dignity would suffer. 

It will thus be easily seen that Dr. F.'s pupils look upon him 
neither with love nor esteem. Becoming occasionally sensible of 
this, he will try to mend matters by putting on a lion's head and 
roaring; but they laugh at his bullying as much as his coaxing. 



ROBERT HOPE MON CRIEFF. 59 

Dr. F. is not the sort of man I should choose to place my sons 
under, and yet I believe him to be a very common type of 
dominie. 

I had intended to present the reader with portraits of other 
dominies ; but looking over the descriptions I have already writ- 
ten, I find them so faithful — in my own opinion at least, which is 
all I have to go by — that I fear to raise up in wrath a host of 
dominies who may find my caps fit, and will thenceforward look 
upon all their literary friends with bitterness and suspicion. So 
here I shall forbear, hastily huddling-up my chapter with a few 
words on the Ideal Dominie. 

The ideal dominie is, of course, a man possessed of all good 
qualities, and especially of those which will gain him the obedi- 
ence and affection of his pupils. He is wise, without being pedan- 
tic; firm, but not harsh; active, though not meddling. His 
digestion is never out of order, and, consequently, he never loses 
his temper, but is always considerate with the thoughtless, pa- 
tient with the slow and timid. Yet he can summon up noble an- 
ger against the sneak and the bully, and knows how to record in 
burning words the " sentence of the liar's and the coward's hell." 
He thoroughly understands the nature of boys, and is well ac- 
quainted with all their tricks; but he knows when to see, and 
when seeing, not to seem to see. He conducts himself towards 
them in such a way as to invite their friendship, and, at the same 
time, to check familiarity. He shows a warm interest in all their 
pursuits, and tills them with part of his own enthusiasm for what- 
ever things are lovely and useful and of good report. He is in 
manners and appearance a thorough gentleman, and in all his 
words and deeds an earnest Christian. Thus he lives happy, 
honored and useful, and will die lamented and remembered. 

Do I, the censurer of other dominies, answer to this picture? 
Alas \ no. God knows how hard I try to do so, and He knows, 
too, how much harder I should try. But there are such men, 
and I, for my part, would rather be one of them than emperor 
of half the world. 



60 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Vm.— RECOLLECTIONS OF A DOMINIE. 

My days are almost done, 

My life has been approved, 
And many love me; but by none 

Am I enough beloved. 

— AVORDSWORTH. 

Several of the members of a class which was under me half-a- 
dozen years ago have lately formed themselves into a club, the 
main purpose of which is to entertain me at dinner every year. 
This is done, I believe, partly from a desire to do me honor, 
partly that old school-friends may meet and keep up their 
acquaintance with each other, and partly as an outward and 
visible sign that the givers of the feast are no longer boys, but 
men. 

The first dinner of the club took place a few days ago, and I 
was very well pleased to attend it, though the feelings were 
curious and novel enough with which I met those young men, 
but a few years ago the objects of my most anxious thoughts, 
now almost strangers to me. 

The affair went off very well. Of course my health was clamor- 
ously drunk as the toast of the evening, the chairman rather 
nervously making a grandiloquent speech in my laudation. I 
don't suppose all he said about me was true; if so, I am about 
the most perfect character that ever existed on the face of the 
earth, except in epitaphs and after-dinner speeches. Then came 
more speeches and songs, and a constant buzz of animated con- 
versation; for by this time the young men had all found their 
tongues, and were eagerly employed in raking up stories of the 
old school-days that already seemed so far away in the past. I 
did not stay long, thinking my presence a check on the lads' con- 
viviality; for while a few assumed a very swaggering and inde- 
dependent tone in my presence, as if to show that times had 
changed, most of them were rather shy, not yet having been able 
to divest themselves of their boyish awe, and feeling towards me 



ROBERT HOPE M ON CRIEFF. 61 

very much like the old gentleman Thackeray tells us of, who 
could not realize the idea that Dr. Birch was impotent to whip 
him. 

So 1 went home, but not to sleep. For this meeting with 
voices and faces not yet grown unfamiliar to me, had roused up 
memories of days gone by which it was hard to set at rest. I 
remembered how these very young men, with shorter coats and 
smoother faces, had laughed, and trembled, and fidgeted, and 
blundered under my yoke. And I remembered almost as vividly 
the first class I ever taught in this city — with what zeal and care 
I worked for their benefit, with what joy and interest I watched 
the progress they made, what hopes I had for the future lives of 
the most promising among them, what fears and doubts for the 
backward. But these hopes and fears and doubts were not alto- 
gether justified by events. There is Smith, who was always at the 
head of the class, and whom I expected to become Prime Minis- 
ter at least in the due course of time, but who is at present a very 
commonplace, middle-aged gentleman, leading a comfortable and 
respectable life as manager of a country insurance office. And 
Brown, whose fond parents thought of putting him into the 
Church, and whose talents seemed to point the way to nothing 
less than an archbishopric, if hedid not spoil his chance by adopt- 
ing any very marked theological opinions, in which case he would 
become a fashionable preacher at a chapel of ease, and a stumb- 
ling-block to the Record ov the Guardian, — Brown, who got so 
many prizes, ran away from home, enlisted in the marines, and 
is said to have been eaten by a shark off the Barbadoes; while 
that stupid fellow Jones, who sat hopelessly at the bottom, and 
showed capacity for nothing but poking pins into other boys' 
legs, has developed that solitary talent to such a purpose, that 
he is now a well-known surgeon and anatomist, making his thou- 
sands a-year. He came to perform an operation upon me lately, 
and with more humor than good taste, reminded me of the pain- 
ful operations which my professional duties once compelled me 
to perform upon him; and as a proof that he bore no malice, 
refused to take my guinea; a very unnecessary scruple, it struck 



62 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

me, as T can safely aver that the ability which has led him to such 
a high place in his profession was in no manner due to the mental 
exercise which he underwent in my class, unless, indeed, constant 
flogging be efficacious for the secret development of unknown 
genius. And Robinson, who I always thought would go to the 
dogs, went to India instead as a beardless ensign, showed great 
pluck and prudence in command of an out-station attacked by 
the enemy, rose rapidly to high command, and has written his 
name in the imperishable rolls of Clio with the letters K. C. B. 
after it. So true is it that boys are but " pretty " or ugly, " buds 
unblown," from the appearance of which it is not always safe to 
judge the flower. 

What says the poet, pnr excellence, of schoolboy life, in writ 
ing of old companions who were not as "once he knew them ? " 

Tom Mill was used to blacken eyes 

Without the fear of sessions; 
Charles Medlar loathed false quantities, 

As much as false professions. 
Now Mill keeps order in the land, 

A magistrate pedantic. 
And Medlar's feet repose unscanned 

Beneath the wide Atlantic. 

Wild Nick, wliose oaths made such a din. 

Does Dr. Martext's duty ; 
And Mullion, with that monstrous chin, 

Is married to a beauty. 
And Darrell studies, week by week. 

His Mant, and not his Man ton ; 
And Ball, who was but poor at Greek, 

Is very rich at Canton. 

But there are some boys whose career I could almost prophesj? 
from the time of my first making their acquaintance: Robert 
Goodboy, for instance. Master Bobby was one of those wonders 
seldom entrusted to the care of skeptical and inconsiderate dom- 
inies. The list of his perfections summed up to me by his mamma 
when she first brought him to school, was something truly amaz- 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 63 

ing, and only to be equaled by the fresh springs of virtue which 
she discovered in him from time to time, and duly informed me of 
on visiting days. Nor, when I came to know the prodigy, did I find 
these perfections so imaginary as they are in the minds of most 
fond mammas. He was a painfully good boy. He never wasidle 
or naughty ; at least he never was found out. He always learned 
his lessons well, and got all the prizes. He never wasted his time 
in shouting or scrambling or wrestling with the other boys. He 
never went home with his collar crushed or his trousers muddy. 
He was always so neat and clean and proper-looking. He kept 
at a distance from the other boys, and was so proudly conscious 
of his own rectitude, that he sometimes volunteered to tell me of 
their misdeeds, and I dare say had his equanimity afterwards 
disturbed by a good kicking for his pains. Thus he passed 
through the school with a great reputation for scholarship and 
good behavior, but without profiting by the lessons of courage, 
frankness and unselfishness which are to be learned among hon- 
est, kindly boys, and which I would far rather see a boy learn 
than all the Latin and Greek in the world. 

I can't say that I was very sorry to part with my friend Mas- 
ter Goodboy, though he had gained me so much credit in the eyes 
of his admiring parents and friends. Of many boys I take leave 
with dread and anxiety, loving them much, and knowing that 
their hearts are weak and their passions strong. But I had no 
fear for his welfare. From his infancy success in life had been the 
object held up by his judicious father for him to aspire to, and I 
felt sure that in one sense of the word he would be successful in 
life; and I was right. He distinguished himself at the university, 
and became a lawyer, and a most able and diligent one. He 
grew into practice and a large income, and is now known all over 
the city as a most respectable and wealthy man, and is bringing 
up a large family to walk in the same paths of propriety and 
prosperity. He is also a great man in a certain section of the re- 
ligious world, whose views he adopted early in life, and thereupon 
began to shun my acquaintance, and to speak doubtfully of my 
moral character, professing to have discovered that I was unsound 



64 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

in my views of justification by faith. A most respectable and 
honorable man, no doubt, but I never heard of his making a friend 
or doing an unselfish action, or lifting a finger — except by way of 
subscription — against the sin and sorrow that oppress his less 
favored fellow-creatures. Perhaps I do him wrong, but I cannot 
think of him without reflecting how little it profits man or boy 
to gain prizes and scholarships and thousands a year, if he grow 
not brave and kindly and noble. 

Robert Goodboy's great rival in the class was Frank Favorite, 
who was as clever and idle and open-hearted as Robert was in- 
dustrious and reserved. Frank was every one's friend but his 
own ; he was carelessly condescending, even to the sneaks and the 
boobies. But he was spoiled by too much friendship, for his com. 
panions flattered him and paid him the homage of boyish admi- 
ration, dazzled by his handsome face and graceful figure. Boys 
worship beauty more than would be supposed, especially when 
joined to strength and courage. He was their leader in every 
game, and first in every study to which he thought it worth while 
to apply himself. But to some dispositions admiration is a 
deadly poison. Frank was a sad example of this. As he grew 
into the passions and the thoughts of manhood, his vanity in- 
creased, and drowned in his heart much of his purer nature. The 
sky of his life seemed bright and clear, and the breeze was fair, 
and he saw not the rocks that lay hid beneath the smooth weaves. 
And he listened to the sirens singing sweetly that good was evil, 
and evil good; and he shunned not the island of Circe, whereon 
grew tempting fruits, bright and blooming to the eye, but bitter 
and baneful to the soul. I saw his danger, and earnestly warned 
him of it, telling him of the perils and sorrows that beset the way 
of life, and the laws of God that no man can despise and be in 
safety. But he heeded me not, and proud in his youth and his 
strength, went on to his fate, which in time he met. For thought- 
less pleasure led on to folly, and folly to crime — crime done in a 
moment, and blasting a lifetime. He awoke then, and knew that 
he had foundered in storm and darkness. And then he found the 
worth of the friends who had once fiattered and followed him. 



nOBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 65 

They still agreed that he was a " fine fellow," and pitied his mis- 
fortunes; but being now steady, respectable men of business, they 
"could not see their way" to help him. If he had come to me, I 
would have welcomed and forgiven him, and done my best to 
raise him from the slough into w^hich he had fallen. But no, he 
was too proud to humble himself thus, having long ago left me 
in disgust, thinking me a mouldy old owd, that loved the shade and 
hated the sunshine. And he did not turn to the Teacher whose 
lesson he had neglected to learn, praying to be forgiven and chas- 
tened and taught anew — at least we fear not. For the proud 
spirit that had led him into such trouble gave way under it; and 
he did that which placed him beyond human help. He shot him- 
self in despair, or, as the coroner's jury, being good-natured men, 
more delicately called it, "temporary insanity." How many 
perish thus from that fearful insanity which makes them forget 
the end and conditions of their being ! 

There was a boy in that class whom Frank, with all his ge- 
niality, might have passed with a scornful nod, or perhaps with a 
patronizing kick. He was slow and awkward, and sullen and 
cowardly, and lived a sad and a solitary life among his schoolfel- 
lows, branded by them with the name of "Muff." He could not 
run, nor fight, nor play cricket, and he cried when he was hurt, and 
trembled and equivocated when he was going to be punished. I, 
with foolish haste, agreed to the verdict of his companions, and 
put him down as a hopelessly bad boy; and if I had known his 
parents, would haveadvised them to remove him from theschool. 
And, actuated by dislike and contempt almost as much as by just 
severity, I did my share to make his life wretched. I afterwards 
bitterly repented of my rash and hasty opinion of him. But I 
was young then, and had not learned how closely evil and good 
areoften interwoven in the heart. It was so with him; forthough 
he sometimes lied, and sulked, and sneaked, he had within the 
seeds of a nobler life — seeds which ripened in time to a warm love 
for things lovely and of good report, and an earnest desire to 
follow these things. One day I was astonished to find him expos- 
ing himself to punishment, rather than deceive me in a way which 

2 T. L.— 5 



66 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

the conventional morality of schoolboys does not teach them to 
regard as shameful. After this I watched him closely, and was able 
to perceive that his heart had been breathed upon by the myste- 
rious Spirit that bio wet li where it listeth ; and for years afterwards, 
as long as he remained under my care, I saw^ from afar off, as it 
were, and rejoiced in the conflict between good and evil which had 
been stirred up within him. The good conquered, and the boy 
whom I had despised grew strong in heart, and bravely wrestled 
with sullenness, idleness and cowardice, and all his besetting 
sins. When he left me he went to the university, and in due time 
became a clergyman, and is now fighting against the poverty, 
misery and ignorance of one of our large towns, the same good 
fight as he once fought against Satan in his own heart. And 
whenever I hear him preach, I feel humble and ashamed, and re- 
solve to beware of judging rashly of that which no human eyecan 
discern fully. 

Another clergyman, who was in the same class, w'as John 
Standfast. He was a sterling boy, and one could perceive his 
value at a glance. Genial and spirited, and moderately indus- 
trious, he was a favorite both with his schoolfellows and his mas- 
ters. Above all, we loved him because he spoke the truth. What- 
ever might be the consequences, no lie or equivocati on ever faltered 
from his lips, and his eye looked unflinchingly into yours, even 
while you were unlocking the sacred drawer, and drawing forth 
the fatal instrument of punishment. He seldom had to be pun- 
ished, and, v/hen he had, took it without a murmur, if he knew 
he had deserved it. He loved justice with the true love of a high- 
spirited boy. I remember one day being in doubt whether I 
should allow Master Goodboytogo above him, and be marked 
at the head of the class or not. From the circumstances of the 
case, I felt a delicacy in giving judgment, and appealed to the 
opinion of the whole class. They almost unanimously pronounced 
in favor of John, and the affair was, as I thought, settled. But 
he stood up, and said that he thought the other boys were WTong, 
and that he should lose his place. I ordered it to be so without 
comment; but I could have hugged him with delight. 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 67 

Another incident showed more clearly his character, and the 
part he was to play in after life. I had just finished punishing a 
boy who was his fidns Achates, when I heard a voice very audibly 
exclaiming, " Cheat ! '' It took me a minute to recover from the 
shock of this unusual interruption, and then I asked who had 
spoken. There was a pause, during- which the boys looked won- 
deringly at each other, and then Standfast stood up. " Did you 
use that word?" "Yes," he answered in a low tone, his face 
growing crimson. "And did you apply it to me? " " Yes, " in a 
still lower tone. " What did you mean ? " "I thought you were 
unjust to — ." I made a slight gesture, which he misunderstood, 
and was coming boldly out to take his punishment; but I ordered 
him to sit down again, and rather to his own surprise, and that 
of the class, took no further notice of the matter till school was 
over. I then had a long private talk with him, in which I pointed 
out to him that his friend had clearly deserved punishment, and 
that even if I had been wrong, it was not any boy's place to cor- 
rect me in such a summary fashion. John had already begun to 
repent of his hasty enthusiasm, and he was quite convinced by 
my arguments that he had done wrong, and most amply apolo- 
gized both at once and afterwards in presence of the whole class. 
But I thought ail the better of him for it, and I often afterwards 
thought of this incident when he had gained a certain notoriety 
by presuming to doubt the infallibility of more dignified teachers. 

John went into the Church, and there ran his head against the 
dogmas of certain learned doctors, who affirmed that God had said 
so and so, which it seemed to his mind it would be wrong even 
of God to say. Yet he could not say that God was unjust, not 
because he feared, but because he loved Him, and wished to be- 
lieve in Him. Ifc was a sore trial for his brave, honest heart, 
whose notions of right and wrong were thus shaken. At length, 
like a flash of light, it came into his mind that, after all, God 
might be true, and men only the liars; and, thereupon, casting 
the authority of the Church and the learned doctors to the winds, 
he rose up from the quagmire of doubt, and, strong in the strength 
of humble hope and loving faith, set himself to find out as wisely 



68 THE TEACHEH in LlTEllATimE. 

and diligently as he could what God had said, and to do his best 
to preach that and nought else to a world sadly deaf to such say- 
ings. And the conclusion he came to was, that it was very easy 
to say what was God's word, but very difficult to say what was 
not God's word. And this conclusion was so different from that 
of certain other reasoners on the subject, that some of these felt 
it their duty to proclaim him a herald of Antichrist. But he 
worked on and cared not, or tried to care not, and to look only 
to God, who knew his heart. It was a hard fight that he fought, 
for both the friends of Satan and many of those who called them- 
selves the friends of God were his foes. At length, faint with 
wounds, and tired of the dust and the shouting of the battle, he 
passed away, leaving behind him unseen but lasting monuments 
in the hearts of those whom he had rescued from darkness and 
led into light. And though he was so "unsound," I have no fears 
for his welfare in the next world, such as I should have if the ed- 
itor of the Christinn Chronicle were the judge of heaven as well as 
of earth. 

Charley Tender was a very different boy, and made a very dif- 
ferent kind of parson. He was always timid and gentle and deli- 
cate, and the other boys laughed at him for his girlish features 
and fair silken locks, though on the whole he was a pet and a fa- 
voriteamong them. Master Charley was rather dreamy and idle; 
but I am afraid I did not do my duty to him, and may therefore 
be blamed by stern persons of Calvanistic persuasions for his 
subsequent perversions. He was so tender and fragile-looking, 
that I never could bear to punish him, especially when he looked 
up into my face with his mild blue eyes in a way which seemed 
amply to confess his fault and to plead for mercy. This always 
disarms me. When a boy is bold and defiant, I have no difficulty 
in thrashing him ex sententia, but it is hard to steel the heart 
and be cruel towards one who is penitent and submissive. And 
so Charley got off many a well-deserved chastisement, and never 
excelled at anything except making sentimental poetry, which 
was an intellectual exertion far more pleasant to him than the 
mastery of hard facts and dusty theories. He seemed fit, indeed, 



HOBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 69 

only to lie on the rose-leaves of life, and I feared for him if he 
should be exposed to the keen blasts and the pelting hail. 

He went into the Church, and became a very earnest clergyman, 
after a particular type of earnestness which is much in vogue at 
present. He rejoiced greatly at the wisdom of the Church and the 
Fathers, and mourned pathetically over the vulgar, prosaic per- 
versity of Dissenters and all other unhappy persons led astray by 
the devil. He made himself dear to the ladies of his flock by the 
gentleness and fragileness which are so becoming to young cu- 
rates, and look so very like the highest form of sanctity. He 
quarreled with the men — how he ever could have quarreled with 
anyone I can't imagine — about his way of conducting the serv- 
ices, in which certain keen-eyed Protestants thought they could 
perceive the hand of the Scarlet Woman. And when the recent 
Ritualistic movement began to agitate the Church, it may be cer- 
tain that Charley threw himself into it heart and soul. Despising 
the scruples of a crass and prejudiced vestry, he would have lav- 
ished all his small patrimony upon candles and flowers a.nd vest- 
ments, by which men of his turn of mind seriously and sincerely 
believe that they can please the Maker of all things. He further- 
more began to hint at a mysterious priestly power which he pos- 
sessed, and to renounce the time-honored name of Protestant. 
These proceedings roused such a storm among his sober parish- 
ioners, that in spite of the sympathy and silent support of many 
enthusiastic maidens, he found the place grow too hot for his 
tender nature, and fled for refuge to a community of monks lately 
established under the very nose of the Record. They received him 
with joy, cropped his hair, called him after the name of some for- 
gotten saint, and thenceforth Charley disappeared from the world. 
I have heard that he is killing himself by fasts and penances and 
vigils, and that he has expressed himself ready to glorify God by 
his death. Opinions differ, but for my part I should have more 
respect for a God who is to be glorified in healthy life and 
activity. 

And many other boys I could tell about who are just the same 
to-day as I knew them at school, and have been distinguished in 



70 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

life for the same qualities that marked them there. T remember 
how Dick used to hold himself aloof from the other boys, and 
skulk about the secret corners of the playground with a scowl on 
his face, though he was so kind-hearted that he wouldn't hurt a 
fly. He said such clever things sometimes, but he did nothing but 
dream over his lessons, and behaved so oddly that he went by 
the name of " Madman." He is a celebrated author now, of the 
cynical and denunciatory type, and some people still call him 
mad, especially those whom he has lashed with his satirical invec- 
tives; but there must be some method in his madness, or else 
rumor lies as to the large sums which he is said to receive for his 
writings. Then Tom, who as a boy was always so pompous, one 
might easily have known tliat he would come to be an alderman 
and a great local politician. And Harry, who got the Victoria 
Cross the other day, used to fight with his friends of all sizes at 
school, in the same dogged and dauntless way of which the 
Russians and the Sepoys afterwards had such sad experience. 

But once summon forth the shadowy train of the Past, and it 
is hard to cry "cease." Memories of all my life come crowding 
before my eyes, filling my heart with a pleasant pain and a sweet 
bitterness. The memory of my childhood comes back to me with 
a dream of kindly words and loving faces and brighf flowers and 
merry sunshine, and childish pleasures and sorrows that are 
pleasures and sorrows no more. Then the hopeful flush and 
strength of youth, and the earnest battle of manhood, and the 
cares and the labors that are perhaps vain in the sight of man, 
but fruitful in the sight of God. And after all, to be alone! 

Alone, yet not alone. For I know that God is with me, not on 
particular days nor in particular buildings, but throughout my 
life and till death. I may seem to some to speak pharisaically; 
but I must speak the truth. I am proud and thankful that He 
has not made me as other men, drunkards, adulterers, extor- 
tioners, revilers, but has turned my heart to seek after the wis- 
dom of the just. And I am humble, too, knowing how little I am 
worthy of such blessing. But ought I not to rejoice? 

At any rate, whatever may be my joys and sorrows, they are 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 71 

but for a little while. I am at school in this world, and, like my 
schoolfellows, I am blundering, and careless, and ignorant. But 
I shall soon be summoned to the presence of the Great Teacher, 
from whose lips I shall learn clearly and perfectly the lesson of 
life in a little while. 

Very solemn should be the recollections of one drawing near to 
the end of life. Alas for him who then looks down the long vista 
of years, and sees nought but the wrecks of wasted strength and 
empty pleasures and broken vows! Happy will he be who knows 
that he has tried to be brave, and pure, and useful, and having 
labored faithfully to spend the talents committed to him, waits 
in humble hope for the day when the angel chorus will come forth 
to meet him with their glad welcome, when every tear of earth 
shall be wiped away from his face, and he shall join the glorious 
multitude for whom their Father's love has conquered Satan, 
and sin, and sorrow, and brought them to dwell forever in the 
city of the Lord. 

I may have failed to make it clear whether the dominie's life is 
the happiest or the most miserable lot on earth. Perhaps in my 
inmost heart I am not altogether certain on this point myself. 
But of this I am sure, that the diligent and faithful dominie shall 
have a better and more enduring reward than aught of earthly 
joys and sorrow can either make or mar. 



IX.— "LION," OR CHASTISEMENTS. 

Ye who instruct the youth of various nations, 
Of France and England, Portugal and Spain, 

I pray you flog them upon all occasions, 
It mends their morals— never mind the pain. 

BVRON. 

Besides myself and my boys, there is a very important mem- 
ber of our little society, without whose ever-ready help some of 
us would not get along very fast on the road to learning. He 
has qualities which make him much feared and respected, though, 



72 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

curiously enough, the most worthless boys in my class are often 
on the most familiar terms with him. In social conversation he 
is generally spoken of as Lion, but his official title is the tawse. 
By this the enliglitened reader will discover that my dominieship 
lies within a certain portion of the British empire which is more 
than a hundred miles from Eton and Rugby. 

But for the benefit of those who have lived and learned in a 
land of canes and birch, I may describe the appearance of Lion, 
from which no one would guess him to be so formidable as his 
victims find him on experience. He is simply a strap of stout 
leather, divided at one end into strips, which are hardened at the 
points by a mysterious process, revealed to dominies on their en- 
tering the profession, under a solemn oath of secrecy, and prac- 
ticed by them in subterranean vaults, dimly lit by one kitchen 
candle. These strips are technically called " tails ; " and when I 
remind readers that a certain cat, which would seem to have 
nine lives, so long has it survived the attacks of Radical reform- 
ers, also enjoys the dignity of as many tails, I will give them 
some hint as to the place which my Lion and his tails hold in the 
political economy of my little empire. 

My boys take a great interest in Lion — so great that the first 
inquiry to which, on entering my class, they direct their youthful 
judgment, is as to whether he be "buttery" or "sappy." I 
would be hard-hearted indeed to balk this innocent curiosity, so 
I soon give them cause to come to the latter conclusion, and, 
thereafter, they respect Lion exceedingly, and boast to their com- 
panions of his prowess as compared with the Lions of other dom- 
inies, and proudly relate their encounters with, and escapes from, 
him. They love who come off well in such encounters ; and often, 
dipping their hands in a tan pool, or anointing them with mystic 
drugs, they invoke the goddess Diana, and strive to emulate the 
fortitude of the Spartan boys. 

The method in which Lion acts upon the sensibilities of my 
boys is simple and effective. The doomed young gentleman who 
has broken our Medo-Persic laws stands forth and extends his 
little hand, sometimes doubtfully, sometimes defiantly. It is 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 73 

immediately and warmly embraced by the claws of our trusty 
monitor, and this operation is repeated a greater or less number 
of times, according to the heinousness of the offense which has 
been committed. The subject of the operation then returns to 
his seat, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and tries to look 
pleased, but generally doesn't. It is a point of honor, though, 
not to cry or flinch ; and thus, if in no other way, Lion would do 
good to boys by preparing them to bear manfully the whips and 
scorns that time has hereafter in store for them. 

There is nothing 1 like better than to see a boy trying to bear 
a flogging well. And I love, too, a sight which I sometimes see in 
our playground —two sturdy little fellows thrashing away at 
each other with knotted straps, laughing at the pain, unwilling 
to give in first. Very vulgar and barbarian and brutal, no doubt, 
but much better for them than lounging about the streets or 
reading novels, which seem to be the amusements of too many of 
the youth of the present day. 

My Lion is still alive and vigorous, and will, I hope, remain so 
as long as I am numbered among dominies. But I observe signs 
that his race is fast dying oat, a result of modern refinement much 
to be deplored. "No corporal punishment" now figures among the 
prominent attractions of those wonderful establishments, where, 
as we see from the advertisement sheet of the Times, young gen- 
tlemen are provided with board, education, washing, books, gen- 
tlemanly manners, and the comforts of a home, for twenty 
guineas per annum. And certain wise professors and learned 
ladies have lately been lecturing me and the other ignorant dom- 
inies, who believe in the wisdom of Solomon rather than that of 
social science sermonizers, severely rebuking us for our brutality, 
and pointing out that we are unfit to manage our classes if we 
ever have to resort to the rod. Some day there will be arising 
among us an equally enlightened set of philosophers, who will 
hold a Home Secretary unfit for his duties if any pickpocket 
is sent to jail during his tenure of office! Oh ye philosophers! 
common sense is an element sadly wanting in some of your social 
sciences. 



74 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

I am afraid, if weighed in these balances, I should be found 
considerably wanting. Yes, Professor Smith, and that solid and 
spectacled essayist, Miss Brown, auctoribus, I am not fit to man- 
age a class. Without Lion I should feel in a class of boys like a 
hunter turned out among a troop of grizzly bears without his 
trusty rifle and bowie. I can't rule them by the law of love. If 
they were angels or professors, I might; but as they are only 
boys, I find it necessary to make them fear me first, and then 
take my chance of their love afterwards. By this plan I find that 
I generally get both; by reversing the process I should, in most 
cases, get neither. 

I hope, however, to manage boys without punishment when 
punishment is altogether abolished in the world — when children 
of a larger growth are no longer scourged, surely and sorely, by 
their own consciences and their own sins. I fear, though, that 
my views are becoming old-fashioned, and that the new race of 
dominies are adopting less sound systems for coaxing a child in 
the way he should go. For we are a humane and a merciful gener- 
ation. Do we not pet and pamper our burglars and pickpockets, 
so as to make them admire our tender-heartedness, and disabuse 
their minds of the old fallacy that dishonesty is a very bad pol- 
icy? And if our Colonial Governor allow half of us to be mur- 
dered by black savages, and then save the other half by prompt- 
itude and severity, we praise him ; but if he carry his promptitude 
so far as to save nearly the whole of us, we prosecute him. 

I lately read in the newspapers that a certain wise legislator, 
wiser than Solomon, while under examination by his constitu- 
ents, by way of self-recommendation, gave utterance to the silly 
sentiment that he highly disapproved of flogging, and would 
never send his children to a school where it was allowed. So that 
we may soon expect a Royal Commission to inquire into the in- 
iquities of the cane and the enormities of the birch, and a stringent 
Act of Parliament prohibiting corporal punishment in any form. 

It is a wonder to me how these agitators, sane men in other 
respects, can be brought to talk such nonsense. Were they ever 
boys themselves, real boys ? Surely not. I can fancy them sneak- 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 75 

ing about the playground in large woolen comforters, and run- 
ning off to mamma with a doleful complaint about every little 
hurt; but I can't fancy that they were ever real boys. If they 
were, have they forgotten the memorable day in the beginning of 
their school life, when they rubbed the palms of their hands with 
rosin, and looked forward with delightful dread to that first can- 
ing which was to seal their undisputed title to the name of school- 
boy ? And do they now prate about this being " degrading " and 
"brutalizing? " 

The question of to flog or not to flog may seem a small matter; 
but I am devoting so much space to it because I believe it to be 
a great one. The public mind is being gradually prejudiced with 
regard to it by a certain class of loud talkers ; and if we dominies, 
who are workers, be silent, we shall, step by step, yield our em- 
pire to the people who talk, and flnd ourselves hurried along by 
the current of theory which is sapping our oldest institutions. I 
for one will ever lift up my voice over the waste of waters, and 
protest, so long as I can find a single floating plank to cling to. 
I am a thorough Radical, indeed, in some educational questions; 
but in others I am a rank Conservative. Facts are as stubborn as 
theories are plastic. So, as theology, common sense, and expe- 
rience alike teach me that boys will not do right without punish- 
ment, I punish them in spite of all theories to the contrary. 

" But," cry the chorus of pundit professors and socially scien- 
tific ladies, '' if you must punish, have you not some punishment less 
brutalizing than the lash ? " (Observe how they give my homely 
Lion fine high-sounding names, "corporal punishment," "the 
lash," and so forth.) Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have other 
punishments, more cruel and less effective. If a boy does not 
learn a hard lesson, I can give him a harder. If he is thoughtless 
and mischievous, I can shut him in from happy hours of play to 
scribble hastily and painfully, or learn by heart — sorely unwilling 
heart — the works of the immortal bards. But I think they like 
Lion better, and he does them more good. The pain of him is 
gone in a minute, but the fear remains. As for the disgrace, it 
exists only in socially scientific Imaginations. For this blessing 



76 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

is given to boyhood, that it is not ashamed to be punished and 
repent for its faults. A flogging seems to the unreasoning school- 
boy mind a sort of repentance, so far a real one that it is not un- 
fruitful ; certainly more so than much of that penitence which is 
performed weekly in our churches and chapels. I must take care; 
I am getting into the regions of moral philosophy, which are mys- 
terious and unfamiliar to me. But to elucidate my meaning, I 
may here explain that in punishing, I act upon the assumption 
that my boys mean to do well. If they are well trained, they will 
wish to please their parents and teachers; and, if they fail, it will 
be nearly always from thoughtlessness or weakness of purpose. 
Then Lion steps in as a stimulant, and all goes well — till the 
next time. They know they have done wrong, and take the con- 
sequences as a matter of course. Oh happy age! when a boy's 
anger and a boy's sorrow pass away like clouds on a summer 
morning, leaving the sky purer and fairer than before. 

At all events, I mean confidently to assert that my boys, 
though they may fear Lion, don't hate him. Behind his back 
they speak of him laughingly, and with playful irreverence trav- 
esty his performances in the nurseries of their wondering baby 
brothers. They consider him as an honorable and worthy enemy. 
They like him better than other punishments, because he suits 
their disposition better. He is not always scolding and teasing; 
but what he has to say he says at once and has done with it, and 
his sayings are not easily forgotten. 

I like Lion, too, for certain reasons. I like him because he 
saves me and all of us time and trouble, and much unpleasant 
feeling. If I set a boy a hundred lines to write, he very likely is 
thinking what a horrid beast lam all the timehe is writing them ; 
but if I give him a thrashing, he looks upon me as a machine ap- 
pointed for the purpose, and feels no more spite against me than 
against the slide on which he has fallen and bumped his little head. 
I can't explain this, but it is true. Even if there should be any bad 
blood between us. Lion brings it into the surface, and it quickly 
evaporates into space. He is a wholesome medicine. Then he 
is of great service in enabling me to regulate my punishments. 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 77 

Thoughts of a present cricket match, or anticipations of a future 
pantomime, may treble the annoyance of a written or learned 
imposition; but by a deep study of the laws of force and motion, 
imparted to neophytes at the College of Preceptors, I am enabled 
on the spot to adapt Lion's rebukes to the magnitude of the 
fault and the capacity of endurance of the culprit. 

I value Lion also because his operations follow close upon de- 
tection, and are seen and manifest of all boys. Justice that 
comes with slow, though sure step, does not much intimidate 
bo3^s, who cannot readily connect crime with punishment. If a 
boy hears that his friend Smith has so many lines to write, he 
will not so surely take example by Smith's sad fate, as if that 
delinquent be summarily and solemnly flogged before his com- 
panions in a way which leaves no doubt in their unreasoning 
minds of the power and vigilance of Nemesis. It is all very well 
for Smith to wink and smile, and pretend he doesn't care, as soon 
as my e^^e is off him, but his companions know by experience that 
he does care, and unconsciously apply to themselves the adage, 
feliciter is sapit, qui periculo alieno sapit,^^ as Mr. Disraeli and 
the Conservative Reformers have lately done with such singular 
sagacity. 

Under most circumstances, it is, of course, a disagreeable thing 
for me to have to call in Lion's aid. But sometimes it is a posi- 
tive delight. How I have enjoyed making a cowardly bully or a 
selfish liar howl with rage and pain before his half-pleased, half- 
awed companions! And it is not altogether unpleasing to see 
the grateful look which a plucky little chap sometimes gives you 
after he has bravely borne his flogging. It says as plainly as 
possible, what he would never express in words — ''Thank you, 
sir; I am sorry, and I won't do it again." This will not happen 
unless you can get your boys to believe that you never punish 
them without cause. If, as too many dominies do, you indulge 
in promiscuous striking from thoughtlessness or passion, they 
will not have such faith in your justice. To this end I try to rule 
myself — a harder task than to rule boys. There is a dark little 
room in our school which is to me a sacred spot. For there is a 



78 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

legend that one of my predecessors, a man of violent temper, used 
to shut himself up there when he got into a passion, and dared 
not trust himself among his boys till he had fought and con- 
quered the devil who was tormenting him. I admire that good 
man and try to imitate him. And I think I have so far succeeded, 
that my boys know that I punish them from calm deliberation 
and settled purpose. At least I try to do so always, though the 
flesh is weak. I have a great safeguard against unjust severity, 
however, in my sympathy with the culprits whom I must doom 
to stripes and tribulation. We have all heard of the pedagogue 
in the old story-books, who feelingly informs Master Badboythat 
he would rather bear the punishment himself than inflict it on 
him, and then commences operations secundem artem. I dare 
say Master Badboy was faithless, and so are many cynical dom- 
inies of the present day; but I believe in the sincerity ot that 
wielder of the birch. I know, and I wonder if my pupils ever 
guess, that I often wish I could change places with the idle urchin 
who is looking fearingly into my frowning face, and nervously 
twitching his fingers. I know very well what I am wishing for. 
I know what the temptation is that he has yielded to, and what 
the suspense is that he is suffering, and what the sting is that he 
will soon be biting his lips and nerAdng himself to bear. But for 
all that, I wish I were the naughty boy, and he the spectacled 
dominie. I should wish him joy of my authority, with its care 
and responsibilities, and I would take all the smart of his wrong- 
doings on myself, so that I might have his simplicity and light- 
heartedness. 

My Lion seems to bear a charmed life. I have possessed, since 
I came to this school many years ago, but one other instrument 
of the kind. That one's claws were too sharp ; so, at the prayer 
of afflicted mammas, I publicly sacrificed him on the altar of ten- 
der-heartedness, and cut him up into little pieces, which were care- 
fully and reverently preserved by his victims, and may be pre- 
served till this day, for all that I know. I then manufactured my 
present instrument, dubbing him Lion; and he has ever since led 
a long, useful, and, as I said, charmed life. From his responsible 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 79 

position, he has been exposed to peculiar clangers, but he has had 
miraculous escapes. Twice has he been stolen by very naughty 
boys bent upon his destruction. But each time their trembling 
hearts failed them, and their hands shrunk from the impious 
deed; and at this day he enjoys a hale and vigorous, though 
rusty old age. 

No wonder that I have such a respect for my trusty old serv- 
ant. New-fashioned dominies may despise him, but I believe in 
him. I consider him to beasound and simple system of theology, 
adapted to the comprehension of the boyish mind. I can't argue 
logically in the defense of my opinion. I know that the spirit of 
the age is said to be against me, and that spirit is hard to strive 
agamst. But there are some matters on which I hold the instinct 
of the child-world to be better than the logical theories of this 
hobble-de-hoy age, and that instinct seems to me to place a truer 
value on the merits of Lion, et id genus omne. So 1 hope that 
he will long continue to exercise a strictly limited and constitu- 
tional monarchy in our English schools. Nay more, if I had my 
way, I would sharpen his claws and send him forth to devour 
among bad men as well as naughty boys. I would flog and 
spare not garoters, pickpockets, fraudulent bankrupts, dishonest 
railway directors, adulterating grocers, and all other ruffians 
and swindlers. This is strong language to apply to respectable 
people, but mixing so much with boys, I have got into their bad 
habit of calling things by their right names. 

I dare say that, after perusing these opinions of mine, some 
tender-hearted people will set me down as a second Dr. Busby, 
and look upon me as a cruel monster. And if these prudent 
readers knew what school I teach in, they would be doubtless 
very skittish of sending their sons there. But I know a brother 
dominie who declaims loudly against flogging, and flogs notwith- 
standing, as his boys have cause to know. In the same way, 
only vice versa, my precepts might be found not to correspond 
very accurately with my practice. For there are some precepts 
which, if you act up to, you are spared the necessity of much dis- 
agreeable practice. Let the socially scientific philosophers rumi- 



80 "I^HE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

nate over this axiom, and let them understand that unless they 
are prepared to abolish the peculiar characteristics of human na- 
ture, it is idle to talk of abolishing punishment from our schools. 
I will end this chapter with the words of a wiser man than my- 
self: "Doubtless flogging is the besfc of all punishments, being 
not only the shortest, but also a mere bodily and animal, and 
not, like most of our new-fangled ' humane punishments,' a spir- 
itual and fiendish torture." 



X .—disciplinarians: 

AS THEY ARE AND AS THEY SHOULD BE. 

" Here is the glass for the pedagogues, preceptors, tutors, governors, 
gerund-grinders, and bear-leaders to view themselves in their true dimen- 
sions.''— Sterne. 

I use the expression tyrants-^ in the old Greek sense, though 
perhaps the tyrants of our boys may too often be called so in the 
modern sense as well. The subject has already been treated in 
my former work on Dominies; yet as that book was confessedly 
written in praise of the profession, I did not feel so much at lib- 
erty to speak my mind as now, when I am writing wholly in the 
service and interest of boys. Besides, as half of my book on 
Dominies was devoted to boys in relation to schoolmasters, it is 
only fair that part of this be taken up in considering schoolmas- 
ters in relation to boys.'^^ These two subjects are of course very 
closely interwoven, and not in two books, nor even perhaps in 
twenty, could one exhaust all that is to be said about them, if 
one could only say it, and the patient public would listen. 

I exclude parents and relatives from the category of rulers of 
boys. My professional prejudices forbid me to admit them as 
regular practitioners. It is a maxim received among dominies 
that parents are no more fit to rule their sons than philosophers 
of the gushing school are to rule England. Their political econ- 
omy is all sentiment. They refuse to believe that their pets can 
do wrong ; they uphold darling Johnny's goodness of heart, and 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 81 

darling Bobby's honesty, with a pertinacity which astonishes the 
unprejudiced observer of these young gentlemen's conduct. And 
even if they are obliged by the stern logic of facts to recognize 
that darling Johnny and darling Bobby are not all that they 
ought to be, they find comfortable phrases with which to palliate 
the harsh disclosures, and save their beloved ones from the con- 
sequences which ought to attend all deviation from the right 
path. Darling Johnny, when ill-tempered and selfish, is said to 
have a "peculiar disposition;" and it is discovered that severity 
does not answer with darling Bobby, if, haply, he is discovered 
stealing the sugar. An affectionate parent once informed me, 
with regard to a new pupil, that I must not be surprised to find 
that his boy had a "strong imagination." This I ver}^ soon dis- 
covered to be a paternal euphemistic way of putting the unpleas- 
ant fact that the boy was the most inveterate liar I ever met 
with. There is no straw of sentiment so small that consanguin- 
eous affection will not seize hold of it to escape the unpleasant 
though sometimes necessary duty of dragging the child out of 
the way in which he should not go. An old lady of my acquaint- 
ance occasionally speaks to me in great tribulation about a 
grandson of hers, who is indisputably addicted to lying and 
other disagreeable peculiarities of disposition. " But I don't like 
to punish him," she says, "because his mother 's dead, and his 
father 's far away at sea." So, in right of his dead mother and 
his nautical father, my young friend is probably growing up to 
be a curse to himself and to society. 

This is the way in which these ignorant people trifle with the 
education of their boys. And we dominies, even we, who think 
so much of ourselves, and who see with such clear eyes the faults 
of other people's children, and are so prompt to apply the proper 
remedies, we must confess that when we come to deal with our 
own offspring, we are as much in the dark, as much liable to hu- 
man error, as our lay fellow-creatures. Who ever heard of a 
schoolmaster that could think of and deal with his own son just 
as he thought of and dealt with the sons of others ? This miracle 
of impartiality has never fallen within my experience at least. 

2 T. L.— 6 



82 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Either the master will be too indulgent towards his own boy, or 
in his anxiety to avoid this extreme, he will fly to the other, and 
be too savage : 

Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charybdiii.*— Virgil. 

I have seen a schoolmaster who would have snubbed in a most 
ferocious manner any rash pupil that dared for a moment to be 
familiar with him. I have seen such a man disgusting a whole com- 
pany by encouraging his own brats to give utterance to preco- 
cious impertinences. And I have known another schoolmaster 
genial and kindly to all his other pupils, but stern, reserved, and 
almost cruel to one of them who had the misfortune to be his 
own son. 

We think it irregular and improper for a father to educate his 
own son, just as a medical man would be shocked if a layman, 
however intelligent, were to prescribe for himself a dose of julep 
without taking professional advice. And as few doctors will un- 
dertake their own cases, but employ a brother Esculapius when 
they fall sick, so most wise teachers prefer to have their sons ed- 
ucated by another member of the craft, who will bring to the 
work an unimpassioned professional judgment, and not be likely 
to mar it by prejudice or sentiment. 

So much must be said to justify my assertion that schoolmas- 
ters are the only fit and legitimate rulers of boys; and now to 
comment upon the manner in which they do their ruling. 

After the lucid way in which I laid down and illustrated the 
subject in my former book, it may scarcely be necessary for me 
to repeat that the work of a schoolmaster is a great one, and 
that he is a great man among his boys. They look up to him as 
a superior being. They love or hate him, as the case may be, 
but if he is not a fool, they respect him. They quote his sayings, 
they watch his doings with as much interest as their mammas 
and sisters read the " Court Circular." Mrs. John Bull and her 
daughters do not derive more satisfaction and instruction from 



* He falls into Scylla who wishes to shun Charybdis. 



nOBERT HOPE MONCEIEEF. 83 

rea cling that "the Princess Helena walked on the slopes this 
morning" than Master John Bull does from hearing that "Mr. 
Goggles read a, newspaper as he was walking to school to-day," 
and perhaps "he was nearly run over by a butcher's cart as he 
was crossing the road." This last piece of intelligence would be 
as exciting as an announcement that the Prince-Ro^^al of Pump- 
anditchvater had tumbled off his hobby-horse and bruised his 
royal pericranium. The other day a youthful Jenkins made him- 
self a person of importance by spying on my movements, and 
publishing to his compeers that at such and such a place Mr. So- 
and-So had smoked a pipe! So we have all the disadvantages 
as well as the privileges of royalty. 

But, though we are thus exalted, it is a notorious fact that our 
office is one which goes a-begging. Broken-down tradesmen, brief- 
less barristers, and notoriously, parsons out of work, have to be 
taken in to swell our ranks, and make up a truly ragged regiment. 
Most men who take to teaching have generally no other wish 
than to get out of it as soon as possible, so it may be imagined 
how much their hearts are in their work. It is rare to see a man 
studying the management and instruction of boys with the zeal 
and diligence with which men study other professions, and throw- 
ing himself into it for life, heart, soul, and body. Therefore it is 
no wonder that our boys are not so well ruled as their fidelity 
and obedience deserve. 

But don't let the reader suppose that I am advocating the 
manner in which certain wiseacres would raise our professional 
standard. They search the uttermost parts of the earth to find 
learned doctors, second Daniels, dons of Oxford and Cambridge, 
honor-men, intellectual mummies of the first class, and these 
they set to teach our boys, chuckling to themselves over the idea 
that they have done a good thing. The British parent highly 
approves of this, and hands over his offspring, with double con- 
fidence, to the care of a man who has half a dozen letters after 
his name. But, bless you ! that's no improvement. A Doctor of 
Civil Law may be as arrant a fool as a village pupil-teacher, and 
a local preacher who drops his Zz's and doesn't know a word of 



84 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

the Greek Testament may be as fit to teach boys as a senior 
wrangler. You don't want a genius to teach boys. The teacher 
must, of course, know more than the taught, but he doesn't need 
to know everything. He does need to have earnestness, and 
force of character, and knowledge of human nature, and common 
sense, all subjects in which no university that I know of professes 
to grant degrees. 

But I have gone over this ground before, and I have no busi- 
ness to be beating it up again just now, seeing that it is not alto- 
gether necessary for my present subject. I only wish the public 
to understand that though our profession is worthy of their very 
highest respect, still many of the members of it are not worthy 
of their profession. 

After all, it is the personal character, and not the acquirements 
and capabilities of their rulers, in which boys are most inter- 
ested, so I will at once proceed to place the matter in this light 
before my readers. I may mention that, so far as I can see ahead, 
I don't think I shall be able to find any excuse for deviation 
till the end of the chapter, which assurance may, I hope, be an 
encouragement and satisfaction to those who are offended by the 
rambling style of my discourses. 

Goldsmith, or rather Dr. Johnson writing in Goldsmith's 
name, has thought fit to observe — 

" Of all the ills that hiunan hearts endure, 
How small the part that kings or laws can cure! " 

This may be true of men, but it is equally true that a consid- 
erable part of a boy's happiness depends on the discipline of his 
school and the character of his schoolmaster. 

The first question a boy asks about a new master is, ''What 
sort of a fellow is he? " The proper answer is, " An awful beast," 
or "A brick," as the case may be. And the point at issue in 
this inquiry is, whether the scholastic individual referred to is 
severe and forbidding, or genial and good-tempered. Let us, 
for the sake of definiteness, call the two classes of schoolmasters 
the grave and the gay, though these words do not exactly bring 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 85 

out their different peculiarities. The epithets which boys them- 
selves would use, such as "cruel" and "kind ," are not just; for 
the dominie who seems cruel may be in the highest and truest 
sense kind, while he whom his pupils think kind, during the time 
of their pupilage, may turn outtohaveacted anything but kindly 
towards them in the long-run. 

It is an undoubted fact that these two orders of schoolmasters 
exist, and have always existed; and historical evidence goes 
to prove that the first type, the grave, has been the prevalent 
one. Till the da3's of Arnold we seldom read of a master but as a 
hard and austere man, to be feared by his pupils while boys, and 
to be ridiculed by them when thej' became men. vScholastic dis- 
cipline is represented as a deadly war between teachers and 
taught, in which the teacher generally has much the best of it, 
and the scholar must obey in hate and trembling. What says 
Horace, when he wishes a comparison for a sycophant who is 
fearfully and nervously anxious to please his patrons? — 

" Ut puerum saevo credas dictata magistro 
Reddere."* 

But on the other hand, there is a rising school of masters who 
try to make the road to knowledge as pleasant as possible — to 
gild the bitter pill of instruction ; and welearnfrom Horace, also, 
that such dominies did exist in his day, though it is to be in- 
ferred they were looked upon as an abnormal sect by the regular 
practitioners and the public generally. 

" Pueris olim dant crustula blandi 



Doctores, elementa veliiit ut discere prima."! 

The grave master, which was the orthodox type till lately, is 
a being the very antipodes of boyhood in thought, feeling, and 
action. He is supposed to have no pleasures but the study of 
preternaturally big books, no interest in anything less exalted 



* That you would take him for a schoolboy saying his lessou to a rigid school- 
master. 

f Fawning teachers at first give cakes to their boys that they may be willing to 
learn their first rudiments. 



86 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

than Latin elegiacs or Greek particles, no sympathy with, but a 
terrible and panic-striking horror of, such juvenile shortcomings 
as idleness, playfulness, and thoughtlessness. To be seen doing 
anything so vulgar as running, laughing, or wearing a shooting- 
coat, would be instant ruin to his reputation. He rules through 
the fear inspired by his power and dignity, and makes no ques- 
tion of the obedience of his subjects. As for their affection, he 
seems to despise it, and their confidence he can never hope to ob- 
tain. When he enters the room every voice musfc be snnk to a 
whisper, and every trivial amusement put a stop to. How his 
eye would wither up any unlucky youth whom he saw making 
grimaces in his presence! No boy dare speak to him till spoken 
to, and then only in a subdued tone of the utmost respect. His 
private room is looked upon as a den of lions, into which no boy, 
however conscious of rectitude, enters without perturbation. 
Verily a man altogether to be feared in reality, and with haste to 
be obeyed; and years afterwards, when the boy goes out into the 
world, he still fears, and perhaps respects, that man in his inmost 
heart. With his lips he may ridicule his peculiarities, and mimic 
his accent, as of old, but if he had occasion to pay a visit to him 
in that awful presence-chamber of his, I trow his heart would be 
thrice set round with triple brass if it did not sink just a little; 
and his hand would be endued with more than mortal strength if 
it knocked at that well-known door with manly confidence. 

The other class of schoolmasters has been increased and mul- 
tiplied of late years. He has a more difficult game to play with 
his boys, yet a pleasanter one. He joins in their sports and oc- 
cupations, he talks their talk, he sympathizes with their joys and 
sorrows. He thus not only gains their confidence more readily, 
but renders himself obnoxious to their approval and censure far 
more than if he stood on his professional dignity. So long as a 
dominie remains on the summit of Olympus and thunders forth 
his decrees upon the earth beneath, he may hope to be sheltered 
from obloquy by the cloud of fear and reverence in which he is en 
veloped. The patient crowd shrink from his thunderbolts, and 
exclaim, " It is Jupiter Tonans; we are but mortals." But if he 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 87 

slip down from the celestial heights, and wander among his sub- 
jects in human form, they grow forgetful of his power, and judge 
him by their own standards. Therefore he must take heed to him- 
self that he stumble not, or great will be his fall. A teacher will 
get into sad trouble by showing too much of his character to his 
boys when it is a character that cannot bear their keen scrutiny. 

All the more credit does a man deserve who can thus put him- 
self on a level with his boys, and at the same time rule them man- 
fully, and keep their respect. But remember that it doesn't fol- 
low that the master who goes on the friendly and familiar track 
with boys is always the most popular or the most useful one. 
Just as a man who is dignified and reserved may possibly be 
beloved, and have a great amount of influence with his boys; so 
a man who is familiar, may be hated or despised by them. A 
man can't act contrary to his nature well; and boys will soon 
find him out, and rate him at his proper value if he does. They 
hate a man who imitates friendliness with them as much as, or 
perhaps even more than, a man who professes open enmity. 
There is no use in coming purring among them, toadying their 
weaknesses, and trying to talk nonsense to them, if you are not ge- 
nial and true-hearted. You must act honestly, according to your 
character and the circumstances in which you are placed, and if 
you are also just and sensible, and your pupils are real, sound- 
hearted boys, not young gentlemen nor mammas' darlings, you 
may be sure of gaining, not popularity perhaps, but certainly 
respect. 

Aniong these two orders of schoolmasters, four classes or 
species ought to be held in abhorrence — yea, five are an abomi- 
nation. 

First, the Z>rz7fa7 master. There are such men, even in the high- 
est ranks of our profession, who bring shame on themselves and 
their cause by the want of command over temper, and consequent 
cruelty which they too often display. I have seen a man bearing 
the image of a scholar and a gentleman, rush upon a boy, knock 
him down, kick him while on the ground, and abuse him in the 
most violent and unjust terms for some scarcely imaginable fault. 



88 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

I have stood by at such a scene till I burst into tears of rage, 
and, boy as I was, had almost rushed forward to interfere, and 
spoken out my mind to the enraged savage. And this gentleman 
would get into the pulpit next Sunday, and exhort his victims to 
follow the precepts of the blessed law of love, which it is such 
men's business to preach but only their duty to practice. What 
wonder if his hearers listened to that gospel message without be- 
lief! I have known a worse case, that of a man who seemed to 
glory in being in a chronic state of ill-temper, who would rub his 
hands and chuckle over every punishment which he could manage 
to effect, and would look positively disappointed if by a lucky 
chance a boy slipped through his fingers so completely that 
there could be no possible excuse for wreaking vengeance on 
him. 

Your geniuses furnish a large contingent to this wretched class 
of teachers. A don, fresh from college, full of hope and enthusi- 
asm, is placarded before the public with all his titles at his tail, 
and unto him do parents, rejoicing and confiding, send their dar- 
lings, that they too might be instructed how to become geniuses 
and gain fellowships. Our scholar sets to work with much fan- 
faronading, but soon is disgusted to find out what he had for- 
gotten, that there are such things as stupidity and idleness in 
this world. He grows wroth that his pupils are not as perfect as 
himself; he forgets to be kind and patient; he storms, he blusters, 
and naturally tilings only get worse. But instead of retiring 
gracefully, and seeking wealth and ease in a butcher's shop, or 
some other profitable business, he fights on bravely but blindly, 
and his work grows daily more hateful and irksome to him — 
plectuntur Achivi.'^'^ He finds now that his first-class at the Uni- 
versity and his fellowship at St. Albans are of little good to him, 
except to attract new pupils — new troubles — to fill up the places 
of those he has driven away by his bad temper. There is yet one 
chance of safety for him, if haply he go to London and become a 
writer for the "Weekly Scourge," in which he may discharge his 
bile upon mankind, and in time regain good temper and sanity. 
But more likely, led on by his evil genius, in sheer dispair, he 



ROBERT HOPE HON CRIEFF. 89 

takes a country grammar-school, drags out a miserable life in a 
state of constant and rancorous war with boyhood, and finally 
dies unknown and unlamented. 

Can boys be expected to like such a man? Yet if he be only 
hot-tempered and cruel at times, with lucid intervals, they will 
make great allowance for his weakness, seeing that it is one they 
can well understand and sympathize with; and, I think, they will 
bestow a much greater portion of their ill-will upon the objec- 
tionable character whom we may call the snarling master. This 
individual's voiee bespeaks his hateful nature at once. It is a per- 
petual snarl, in which he delivers the utterances of a cynical, love- 
less heart. He may not be severe or unjust, but he is always 
finding fault, and that too in the most disagreeable way possi- 
ble. No word of kindly praise or genial encouragement ever es- 
capes from his lips. He never takes notice of merits, but his eye 
is keen for imperfections. For all his pupils know% he is a ma- 
chine, employed to fill their little heads with as much Latin and 
Greek as can be safely got thereinto, but caring no more for them 
further than if they were so many pieces of earthenware. Who- 
ever knows how the nature of boyhood yearns for love and help 
and sympatic, must know in what evil odor such a teacher will 
be held by his pupils. 

Uniting some of the faculties of both of these, and probably 
more disliked than either, is the stupid dominie. The stupid 
dominie has perhaps a very wise face, looking grandly and digni- 
fiedly over a white choker — but he is a fool. He may not be 
cynical or passionate, but his unpardonable sin is that he does 
not understand boys nor his duty towards them. He has a 
vague, hazy idea that it is the chief business of a schoolmaster to 
punish boys, especially if he catches them enjoying themselves. 
So if one boy drops a marble in school, it is, " Smith, write three 
hundred lines," or if another winks at his crony sitting opposite, 
it is, "Jones, come to my room at three o'clock." And so two 
merry boys are perhaps made as miserable as a man can make 
them for a whole afternoon, while their guide, philosopher, and 
friend, sits complacently in his desk, thinking he has done rather 



90 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

a clever stroke of business for the day. He is in his glory if he 
can catch a dozen boys making a noise somewhere and looking 
happy; then he swoops down upon them and gives them a hun- 
dred lines all round, with great gusto. He is always seeing where 
wise teachers would take good care not to see, and interfering 
where his interference can do no possible good, and may do a 
great deal of harm. He cultivates a professional instinct which 
leads him to thirst for the blood of boy, and he has no knowledge 
of any form of reasoning but his cane. Why, I have seen him 
hammering away at a plucky boy, who was standing silent and 
immovable, with set lips and knitted brows, and after dismissing 
him to be a martyr among his school-fellows, he would sheathe 
his weapon in triumph as if he had gained a great victory. I am 
certain a skillful master could have made that boy speak, ay, and 
weep, and confess his fault with real penitence and repentance, by 
the use alone of that little member, the tongue, which, in the 
mouth of a wise man, is a more pow^erful thing than all the canes 
in the pig-headed creature's class-room. His punishments do 
little good service in preventing wrong-doing; they only make 
boys crouch like hounds before his face and curse him behind his 
back. And even if he does punish with good reason, he has the 
remarkable knack of managing to make it all appear the result of 
mere caprice or revenge. This is what I call the stupid school- 
master, from whom Heaven preserve all brave and kindly boys ! 
Oh ! it does make me angry to see such men trusted to work with 
the precious metal of boyhood, like a blacksmith essaying to 
fashion pure gold. But such men do teach and flourish; their 
boys do not like to complain, and so suffer in silence, happily igno- 
rant of a more fortunate lot. Now and then the pent-up ill-feeling 
will boil over; a rash champion will stand up in defiant mutiny; 
but the matter will blow past; the alarmed ruler, like other 
rulers, will strive to pacify his subjects, either by grape and can- 
ister or by a temporary display of prudence and generosity, as 
circumstances may advise, and then all will go on as before. 
Once in a world's history arises a deliver, a Marcus Furius Cam- 
jllus, by whom the tyrant, being caught tripping, is bound and 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 91 

delivered over to his subjects, that gleefully and fearlessly they 
may thrash him to their hearts' content. 

The fourth kind of schoolmaster to whom I wish to hint that 
he has mistaken his vocation, is very different from these three. 
I mean the easy-going, tender-hearted master, the man who is too 
lazy and good-natured to do his duty to boys, and seeks only for 
their good will. He may gain this from the worst part of his 
boys, but he must make up his mind to do without the respect of 
any. No one can have a greater contempt tlian boys for silly 
good-nature in a teacher. "He can't teach '."one of my boys 
once said to me in a tone of the utmost scorn, speaking of a for- 
mer instructor. "If you didn't know your lesson one day, he 
scolded 3^ou. If you didn't know it two days running, then he 
kept you in to learn it. And he never licked you unless you 
didn't know it on the third day." So the poor gentleman's pa- 
tience and long suffering had only excited the ridicule of the boys 
whom he was treating so affectionately. My young friend had 
soon occasion to discover that I was by no means so good-na- 
tured ; and though I dare say he didn't fully appreciate the 
merits of my system, yet I have no doubt he was proud of it, and 
boasted among his companions of my promptitude to come 
down upon him. Boys take a positive pride in a teacher w- ho keeps 
a tight hold over them and makes them stick to their work, and 
such a man's strictness will not in the least stand in the w ay of 
his popularity, if he be just and genial. 

At all events, any affection which such toadying to the failings 
of boys may secure from them will pass away when they grow 
older. They will then see the real merits of their teachers in a 
juster light, and will not fail to despise the man who was too 
good-natured or too weak to punish their faults. In illustration 
of which I may tell a story, relating, as many other stories in this 
book do, to my own juvenile experiences. In the days of nursery- 
dom and womanly rule, while yet my mind was uncultured and 
my stomach weak, it chanced that I fell sick. The usual council 
of the higher domestic powers was held over my prostrate form, 
and the usual fiat went forth that I should imbibe a nauseous 



92 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

mixture, the very name of which still makes me shudder, My 
nurse received the fatal cup, and approached the bed; but I, as 
yet ignorant of the noble fortitude of Socrates under similar cir- 
cumstances, wept, and implored her to have mercy. Thereupon she, 
being moved to pity, and being, as she remarked, "not very well 
herself," volunteered to drink the horrid stuff instead of me, if I 
would say nothing about it. Gladly I consented. She drained 
the bowl, and I hope it did her good — the want of it, luckily, did 
me no harm. £ was grateful to her, and rejoiced for the time be- 
ing; but when years rolled over my head, and the Boy (with a 
capital B) had passed into the Youth, I began to reflect that, 
however fond my Aunt Tabitha was of drenching me with drugs, 
still she ought to have known best what was necessary for the 
welfare of my digestive organs, and that possibly the want of 
this medicine might have been the deatli of me. Now, my nurse 
Betsey was just like th'ose blandi doctores whom I object to, with 
a spice of selfish principle superadded to her motives for indul- 
gence, for she would not have vicariously taken my draught if she 
had not believed that it would benefit her own stomach ; and I 
amsureshehad thelion's share of the plum-cake which ha.darrived 
in the nursery the day before. But I digress. Pardon me, reader. 
In a book about boys, I may, perhaps, be allowed to run astray 
after every phantom of my own boyhood that comes glimmering 
across my subject. 

Though I consider the too good-natured dominie a dangerous 
character, I must say that I sympathize very much with him. It 
is so hard to punish — boys don't know how hard. It is their 
temptation to be idle and riotous, and it is our temptation often 
not to do our duty in checking their faults, so dear to us are 
their smiles and happy laughter. 

Like unto the good-natured master, but perhaps even more ob- 
noxious in some respects, is the new-light master. Thisistlie man 
who has " ideas " and " methods " and " systems," some of them 
ridiculous, and some harmless enough, but some most pernicious. 
He supposes that no one ever knew how to teach till he appeared 
on the firmament of education. He laughs at all our scholastic 



HOBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 93 

customs and traditions. He professes to abhor punishment, and 
all the other stern realities of school life. He has discovered easy 
and speedy ways of learning, and he has no doubt but that human 
nature will readily conform itself to his theories. Alas for such 
men! facts are stubborn. The road to knowledge is at best but 
a long and weary way, full of steep ascents and dangerous pit- 
falls, thick set with sharp thorns and cruel stones. Day and 
night it would resound with wails and groans, were it not for the 
blessed light-heartedness and the inextinguishable mirth which 
Heaven has granted to the little travelers thereon. No man can 
make that way short and easy; and all the teacher can do is to 
beguile its length and hardness by song and dance— yea, and the 
sweet pride of doing and suffering manfully. Therefore I hold in 
scorn the man who pretends to do that which God hath not seen 
good to have done. 

Having spoken out my mind against those schoolmasters as 
they too often are, I would say something about what a school- 
master ought to be. I profess faith in no particular theories, 
and in no specifics except firmness, kindness, and common sense, 
all brought into play, in connection with a judicious use of Lion. 
I can't charge myself with being either fond or savage. I have 
found that boys are very much as they are treated. If you are 
too easy and indulgent with them they will take the reins into 
their own hands, and lead you a pretty dance after them. If you 
are too strict and exacting, they will become sly and cunning; 
but if you treat them with firmness and discretion, you will have 
no difficulty with an ordinary team. 

Boys appreciate being ruled like reasonable beings. They will 
obey a strong despot, whose only law seems to them his temper 
and caprice; but they will obey with far more readiness and 
cheerfulness a constitutional monarch, who shows them clearly 
how the principle of his rule is the common good of all. Boys 
know very well that they sometimes do wrong, and deserve to be 
punished; and the discreet dominie will make good use of his 
knowledge. Furthermore, he will not frown too severely on every 
little fault, but will keep his real thunderbolts for heinous sinners 



94 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

— the liar, the bully, and the brute. He will say to his boys in 
effect: "I know that you are naturally'' prone to laugh and chatter 
and play tricks and make grimaces, in season and out of season; 
and you know that I am here to make you do something more 
useful, though less agreeable, at certain times and places ; and 
you know, too, that if I did not make you do this I should be a 
muff and a humbug. 1 know, moreover, that you are willing 
enough to believe me, and to do as I wish you, but I know that 
you are unsteady of purpose and weak of memory; and therefore 
when you forget or fail to obey me, I shall feel myself under the 
necessity of stimulating your will and memory by some such 
simple means as — voilk!'^^ And I expect you, on the other hand, 
to take it all in good part, and to believe that it is no pleasure 
to me to see those little hands clenched in pain, and these little 
lips working hard to repress your feelings. So let us fight a fair 
battle as honorable enemies, and live as kindly friends in due 
times of peace, thinking no harm of each other, because the one 
acts according to his nature, and the other according to his duty; 
and let us both agree to hate and scorn whatever is mean or foul 
or dishonest, whether in man or boy." 

Such an appeal as this will not be found to lack fitting response. 
And the advantage of ruling your boys on such principles will be 
some degree of mutual trust and kindly good-will. The boys will 
not look upon you so much as their natural enemy, but rather as 
a friend to whom they may tell their joys and sorrows, and re- 
ceive encouragement and sympathy. You will find that you can 
best put down certain forms of misbehavior by warning your 
boys against them, and asking them to fix their own punishment 
if they forget the warning. You will find that if a boy tell you a 
deliberate lie, his companions will at once betray him by a hearty 
groan of disgust. You will find that if you have forgotten to in- 
flict a certain punishment which you had ordered, the culprits 
themselves will not hesitate to remind you. You will find a boy 
asking to be punished, when you are inclined to let him off, " and 
then I am not likely to do it again." You will find that boys 
take a pride in your justice and severity, and value your praise 



nOBERT HOPE MONCMEFF. 05 

and blame more keenly than you might suppose it possible. 
Why, the severest punishment I ever inflict is not to speak to a 
boy for some days. This is reserved for lying and such-like of- 
fenses; and if the culprit be not hardened, you may see him with 
downcast looks, hanging about me or placing himself in my way 
day after day, in hopes of one word as a sign of returning favor. 

All this you may experience as a schoolmaster, if you are not 
a stock and a stone with a black coat on your back, a cane in your 
hand, and an LL.D. after your name. Too many of our teachers 
are such lay figures. 

The schoolmaster will also have a better chance of gaining 
influence over his pupils, if he takes some interest in their pursuits 
out of school, which, after all, in a boy's eyes, are the most im- 
portant interests of life. A certain poet, who was a prejudiced 
enemy to schools, speaks with great scorn of the race of school- 
masters of his day : 

"Public hackneys in the schooling trade, 
Who feed a pupil's intellect with store 
Of syntax, truly, but with little more; 
Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock. 
Machines themselves, and governed by a clock." 

With characteristic want of knowledge of the frailties of hu- 
man nature, our poet goes on to recommend a select course of 
botany, astrology, and theology to be pursued by master and 
pupil in their hours of leisure; but without going so far we may 
express a hope that the race of teachers who look upon their boys 
merely as receptacles for grammar, is already far on its way to 
extinction. The model schoolmaster of the present day is wiser, 
and studies to be his boy's playfellow and companion, that he 
may the better know how to be their ruler. How many learned 
mollahs^* are there who are great in the cricket-field ! How many 
who can knock over their pupils at football as well as in Euclid ! 
To some masters, indeed, these fields of distinction are forbidden. 
It is not given to every one to wield the bat of Tom Brown. A 
man may be a good teacher, and have a poor biceps. And do 



96 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

not some of us wear spectacles, and some wigs? Old teachers, 
too, who have been reared in the stately traditions of the ancien 
regime, cannot easily throw off their prejudices, and shake their 
heads, half approvingly, half doubtfully, over the free and easy 
intercourse which has to a great measure succeeded to the old 
ideas of scholastic discipline. But in such cases, is it not allow- 
able to assume a virtue if you have it not? I don't ask you, my 
paunchy friend, to go to the wicket, or to take part in a " scrim- 
mage "in person; but without going so far, you may do much 
to make your pupils feel that you are not a walking dictionary, 
but a man that was once a boy. 

Thus is it possible for the schoolmaster to become truly the 
ruler, the king of boys, the fountain of honor among them, the 
model of excellence. Then will he be obeyed readily, not servilely, 
by subjects who will fight for the honor of doing his bidding. 
Then will his kindly word of praise be thirsted for ; one sentence 
from him will make a boy a pundit or a hero; and his censure 
will call forth shame and contempt. Then will he not be deceived 
and plotted against, because his boys will do everything by his 
advice or orders. Then will his companionship and presence be 
counted honor and happiness; his smiles will be waited for by- 
simple courtiers, his wants anticipated b3^ honest sycophants. 
But my fancy runs away with my judgment ; this will be the 
golden age as yet far off. Nevertheless, should we not rejoice the 
nearer we can attain to it ? 

I have meant the latter part of this chapter to go to prove 
that ruling boys is not of itself such an invidious and ungrateful 
duty as some people believe it to be, and that the rulers of boys 
may possibly find a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction in 
their task. But I must admit that the truly good schoolmaster 
cannot always expect to be liked by his subjects. Boys are igno- 
rant and capricious, they have whims and prejudices, and some- 
times they do not understand or appreciate the labors of a really 
kind-hearted man who is working hard for their good. Such a 
man is to be pitied and praised if he stick to his work bravely 
and faithfully in spite of discouragement. But I don't think any 



ROBERT HOPE MONCRIEFF. 07 

man should continue to be a master who finds himself actually 
hated by his boys, so that he rules merely by brute force. 

Between you and me, reader, I have got on with this chapter 
faster than is my wont, thanks to an attack of illness which has 
for some days confined me to the house. Outside is the white, 
crisp snow and the cold, treacherous wind; inside a warm fire 
and a pile of medicine-bottles which my doctor has sent me, some 
of which I am dosing myself with, while others, guided by a happy 
instinct, I propose to consign to oblivion. I sit lolling on an 
easy chair, luxuriously sipping slops, and ever and anon jotting 
down a page or two of these lucubrations. And as I turn over 
this subject in my head, I cannot prevent my memory from 
straying back to days long gone by, when I, a foolish boy, was 
glad to be confined to bed, and be shut out from the merry sun- 
shine and the clear, frosty air, and to eat slops and endure 
blisterings and dosings, and all this joyfully and thankfully — 
why ? Because of a man who was at that time the shadow of my 
young life, because he was fierce and unjust and cynical and pas- 
sionate, because I hated and feared him, as boys, thank God ! 
seldom hate or fear, so well did he use his power to make my life 
miserable. I was glad to be sick and a prisoner so that I might be 
away from him, and I know that many of my schoolfellows had 
the same feeling. What a song of triumph we sang in our hearts 
when he fell ill! — not that he often gave us cause so to rejoice, 
for he was a provokingly healthy animal. 

He is dead now, and I wish I could obey the precept — De mor- 
tuis nil nisi honum}^ I have no unkindly thoughts toward him 
on my own account ; but no one who knew him could say that he 
was a fit man to be a schoolmaster. 

I introduce this for the purpose of saying, that if I thought 
Tuy boys rejoiced over my illness as we rejoiced over that man's, 
I would straightway go and hang myself on what Mr. Carlyle 
would call "the nearest suflBcient tree," not without testamen- 
tary disposition of funds to erect a monument, with suitable in- 
scription, seeing that so little love and respect should be otherwise 
destined to honor my grave. 

2 T. L.— 7 



98 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

XI. THE TRUE TEACHER. 

( From "Master John Bull.") 

One is tempted to despair of good education when one thinks 
of what a good teacher should be. It is not only the amount of 
soundness of his knowledge that is important; above all things 
it is necessary for him to be wise. He must know the human 
mind; he must understand the power and the weakness of its 
faculties, and the processes by which they are developed; he 
must be able to watch and guide and stimulate this development 
in various stages and various natures. To do this well, a man 
must have infinitely more intelligence than is necessary for argu- 
ing cases or calculating bills of parcels. And the schoolmaster's 
wisdom must be no matter of theory, no collection of book- 
gathered precepts. It must be prompt, practical, versatile. 
Every moment he is called upon to exercise it in new w^ays and in 
the face of new obstacles. He must have energy and perse- 
verance, and the courage which urges a man to fresh efforts after 
hourly recurring defeats. He must have the force of character 
which makes a ruler; otherwise, he can only rule his little empire 
by blows and howls. He must be the strongest of rulers; the de- 
crees of no Khan of Crim Tartary should be more absolute than 
those of the humblest village schoolmaster, and yet he must be 
more than a ruler— a friend. He must be filled with sympathy; 
he must understand as it were his own heart, the weakness and 
ignorance and happy thoughtlessness of boys. If their April 
tears and laughter are to him subjects of ridicule or indifference, 
he cannot hope to win their hearts; and if he winnot their hearts, 
he cannot teach them as they should be taught, no, not with 
whole forests of canes and tempests of scoldings. He must have 
then in the highest ' degree the qualities which make the 
scholar and gentleman; he must know, and think, and act 
and feel as no other professional man, save the clergyman, need 
do. His life must be pure and honest, his heart must be humble, 
and his words gentle; or it were better for him that a millstone 
were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 

1728-1774. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born in Ireland in 1728. He was ill-favored 
and blundering as a boy, the common butt of boys and masters, derid(;d 
on the playground and flogged as a dunce in the schoolroom. But, after 
he rose to eminence, all were glad to recite the repartees and couplets 
which foreshadowed the" Vicar of Wakefield " and the" Deserted Village." 
He never attained to accurate scholarship, and failed in five or six pro- 
fessions which he tried. He wandered as a minstrel through Flanders, 
France and Switzerland, playing tunes which set the peasantry dancing. 
But in Italy he fared badly, and had to beg his way back to England. 
Here he sustained himself by doing hack work for a bookseller. In 17G3 
he was introduced to Johnson, Burke and Reynolds, and was one of the 
first nine members of the "Literary Club." In his distress he took the 
manuscript of the "Vicar of Wakefield," to Johnson, who sold it for £G0. 
In 1770 the "Deserted Village" appeared, and in 1773, "She Stoops to 
Conquer," a farcical play in five acts, which was a hit, and is still popular. 

The "Vicar of Wakefield," rapidly obtained a popularity Avhich has 
lasted down to our own time, and which is likely to last as long as our 
language. The earlier chapters have all the sweetness of pastoral 
poetry, together with all the vivacity of comedy. 

The Village Schoolmaster. 

(From "The Deserted Village," by Oliver Goldsmith.) 

Beside yon strag:gling fence that skirts the way, 
With blossom 'd furze unprofitablj gay, 
There, in his noisy mansion, skill'd to rule, 
The village master taught his little school. 
A man severe he was, and stern to view ; 
I knew him well, and every truant knew ; 
W^ell had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace 
The day's disasters in his morning face ; 

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100 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee 
At all his jokes, for many a Joke had he ; 
Full well the busy whisper circling round, 
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd. 
Yet he was kind, or if severe in aught, 
The love he bore to learning was in fault. 
The village all declared how much he knew: 
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too. 
Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, 
And even the story ran that he could gauge. 
In arguing, too, the parson own'd his skill, 
For even though vanquish 'd he could argue still ; 
While words of learned length and thundering sound 
Araaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around ; 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 

But past is all his fame : the very spot, 
Where many a time he triumph'd is forgot. 

CHAE ACTERIZATION . 

Lord Macaulay says: ''The first work to which Goldsmith attached 
his name was 'The Traveler,' pubhshedinl764. Thispoemat once raised 
him to the rank of a legitimate English classic. The opinion of the most 
skillful critics was that nothing finer had appeared in verse since the 
fourth book of the Dunciad.'^*' ... No philosophical poem, ancient or 
modern, has a plan so noble and at the same time so simple. The exe- 
cution is inferior to the design. In mere diction and versification the 
* Deserted Village' is fully equal, perhaps superior, to ' The Traveler.' But 
a poet cannot be pardoned for describing ill. This celebrated poem is 
made up of incongruous parts. The village in its happy days is a true 
English village. The village in its decay is an Irish village. The felicity 
and the misery which Goldsmith has brought close together belong 
to two different countries and two different stages in the progress of 
society." 

Another writer says : " His prose has been admitted as the model of 
perfection and the standard of the English language." " Goldsmith was a 
man of such variety of powers and such fidelity of performance," says 
Dr. Samuel Johnson, " that he seemed to excel in whatever he attempted, 
a man who had the art of being minute without tediousness, and general 



HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 101 

without confusion ; whose language was capacious without exuberance, 
exact without restraint, and easy without weakness. 

''The ' Vicar of Wakefield,' is a composition which has justly merited 
the applause of all discerning persons as one of the best novels in the 
English language. The diction is chaste, correct and elegant. The 
characters are drawn to life, and the scenes it exhibits are ingeniously 
variegated with honor and sentiment. 

*' Goldsmith's merit as a poet is universally acknowledged. His writ- 
ings partake rather of the elegance and harmony of Pope than the gran- 
deur and sublimity of Milton. 

"The 'Deserted Village' is generally admired; the characters are 
drawn from the life, the descriptions are lively and picturesque, and the 
whole appears so easy and natural as to bear the semblance of historical 
truth more than poetical fiction. It may be justly ranked with the most 
admired works in English poetry." 



HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 

1785-1806. 

Henry Kirke White was born at Nottingham, England, August 21, 
1785. His father was a butcher whom he assisted in his business in his 
boyhood. Henry was a rhymer from his earliest years and strove to rise 
above the station into which he was born. While a clerk in an attorney's 
office, he devoted his leisure to the study of Latin so successfully that 
after ten months' study he could read Horace with tolerable facility. He 
wrote and won prizes for his compositions, and soon became a corre- 
spondent of the Monthly Mirror. This introduced him to the proprietors 
who encouraged him to prepare a volume of poems, which was published 
in 1803. One of his pieces, entitled Clifton Grove, shows remarkable pro- 
ficiency in smooth and elegant versification and language. By the aid 
of friends he entered Cambridge University, and won prizes for scholar- 
ship. But his efforts overtaxed his physical powers, and he died October 
19, 1806. A tablet to his memory with a medallion by Chantrey was 
placed in All Saints' Church, Cambridge, by a young American gentle- 
man, Mr. Francis Boot, of Boston, bearing the following inscription by 
Professor Smyth : 



102 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

" Warm with fond hope and learning's sacred flame, 
To Granta's^^ bowers the youthful poet came; 
Unconquered powers and immortal mind disjilayed, 
But worn with anxious thought, the frame decayed. 
Pale o'er his lamp, and in his cell retired, 
The martyr student faded and expired. 
Oh ! genius, taste and piety sincere. 
Too early lost midst studies too severe! 
Foremost to mourn was generous Southey seen. 
He told the tale and showed what White had been ; 
Nor told in vain. Far o'er the Atlantic wave 
A wanderer came and sought the poet's grave; 
On yon low stone he saw his lonely name. 
And raised this fond memorial to his fame." 



, The Village Schoolmistress. 

(From "Childhood," by Henry Kirke White.) 

In yonder cot, along* whose mouldering walls, 
In many a fold, the mantling woodbine falls, 
The village matron kept her little school. 
Gentle of heart, yet knowing well to rule, 
Staid was the dame, and modest was her mien ; 
Her garb was coarse, yet whole, and nicely clean : 
Her neatly-border'd cap, as lily fair, 
Beneath her chin was pinn'd with decent care; 
And pendant ruffles, of the whitest lawn, 
Of ancient make, her elbows did adorn. 
Faint with old age, and dim were grown her eyes, 
A pair of spectacles their want supplies ; 
These does she guard secure, in leathern case, 
From thoughtless wights, in some unweeted place. 

Here first I enter'd, though with toil and pain, 
The low vestibule of learning's fane: 
Enter'd with pain, yet soon I found the way. 
Though sometimes toilsome, many a sweet display. 



HENRY KIRKE WHITE. 103 

Much did I grieve, on that ill-fated morn, 

When I was first to school reluctant borne ; 

Severe I thought the dame, though oft she tried 

To soothe my swelling spirits when I sigh'd ; 

And oft, when harshly she reproved, I wept, 

To my lone corner broken-hearted crept, 

And thought of tender home, where anger never kept. 

But soon inured to alphabetic toils. 
Alert I met the dame with jocund smiles; 
First at the form, my task forever true, 
A little favorite rapidly I grew : 
And oft she stroked my head with fond delight, 
Held me a pattern to the dunce's sight; 
And as she gave my diligence its praise, 
Talked of the honors of my future days. 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

Mr. SouTHEY considers that the death of the young poet is to be 
lamented as a loss to English literature. To society, and particularly 
to the church, it was a greater misfortune. The poetry of Henry was all 
written before his twentieth year, and hence should not be severely judged. 
If compared, however, with the strains of Cowley or Chatterton at an 
earlier age, it will be seen to be inferior in this, that no indications 
are given of great future genius. There are no seeds or traces of grand 
concei)tions and designs, no fragments of wild original imagination, as 
in the "marvellous boy" of Bristol. His poetry is fluent and correct, 
distinguished by a plaintive tenderness and reflection, and pleasing pow- 
ers of fancy and description. AVhether force and originality would have 
come with manhood and learning, is a point which, notwithstanding the 
example of Byron (a very different mind) may fairly be doubted. It is 
enough, however, for Henry Kirke White to have afforded one of the 
finest examples on record of youthful talent and perseverance devoted to 
the purest and noblest objects. 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 

1807-1892. 

John Greenleaf Whittier, the Quaker Poet, was born December 
17, 1807, of an ancestry noted for sterling qualities and Quaker and 
Calvinistic faith. For many generations his paternal ancestors suffered 
persecution for loyalty to their religious convictions, and <were remark- 
able for their sensitive piety. One of the distinguishing characteristics 
of his genius is his story-telling power as is evinced by the fact that 
in his youth he published two volumes of legends in yjrose. As a school- 
boy, instead of doing his sums, he was always writing verses. At the 
age of 19 he made his debut as a poet, and began his life-work. In 1828 
he became editor of the American Manufacturer, and in 1830 of the 
Essex Gazette, but six months afterwards he took charge of the New 
England Weekly Review, then edited by Geo. D. Prentice. Soon after 
this Whittier became prominently identified with the anti-slavery move- 
ment, and many of his poems bear upon this subject. He wrote and 
lectured in its interest, and the story of his life for many years is bound 
up with this movement. From 1858 to 1868 is called his Ballad Decade, 
during which time he wrote "Snow-bound," which, although notaballad, 
is still a narrative poem, the difference between a ballad and an idyl 
being that one is sung and the other read. 

It would require volumes to tell the story of this unique man. The 
nature he inherited and the times in which he lived are reflected in 
his works. 

At midnight, December 17, 1891, the eighty-fourth birthday of Whit- 
tier, there was a Joy-peal from the tower of the Cathedral of St. Boni- 
face in Winnepeg, Manitoba, in honor of his poem "The Red River 
Voyageur." He died on his eighty-fourth birthday. 

The Student-Teacher. 

(From "Snow-bound," by John Greenleaf Whittier.) 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, 

The master of the district school 

Held at the fire his favored place, 

Its warm glow lit a laughing face 

Fresh-hued and fair, w here scarce appeared 

The uncertain prophecy of beard. 
(104) 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 105 

He teased the mitten-blinded cat, 

Played cross-pins on m j uncle's hat, 

Sang songs, and told us what befalls 

In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 

Born the wild Northern hills among, 

From whence his yeoman father wrung 

By patient toil subsistence scant. 

Not competence and yet not want. 

He only gained the power to pay 

His cheerful, self-reliant way; 

Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 

To peddle wares from town to town; 

Or through the long vacation's reach 

In lonely lowland districts teach. 

Where all the droll experience found 

At stranger hearths in boarding round, 

The moonlight skater's keen delight, 

The sleigh-drive through the frosty night. 

The rustic party, with its rough 

Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 

And whirling plate, the forfeits paid, 

His winter task a pastime made. 

Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 

He tuned his merr^^ violin, 

Or played the athlete in the barn, 

Or held the good dame's winding yarn ; 

Or mirth-provoking versions told 

Of classic legends rare and old, 

Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 

Had all the commonplace of home, 

And little seemed at best the odds 

' Twixt Yankee peddlers and old gods; 

Where Pindus-born Araxes took 

The guise of any grist-mill brook. 

And dread Olympus at his will 

Became a huckleberry hill. 



106 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 



CHARACTERIZATION. 

As Principal SHAiRPsays: "The mission of the poet is to awaken men 
to the divine side of things, to bear witness to the beauty that clothes 
the outer world, and to the nobility that lies hid, often obscured, in 
human souls ; to call forth sympathy for neglected truths, for noble but 
oppressed persons, for downtrodden causes, and to make men feel that 
through all outward beauty and all pure inward affection God himself is 
addressing them." 

Whittier, like Wordsworth, glorifies the scenes of common life, and 
hallows the landscapes of his New England homes. His verses speak in 
the dialect of the people, and deal with themes with which they are 
familiar. He lifts toil above its drudgery, and sanctifies as with a sacred 
glow, the things with which men in common spheres have to do. He 
was a true exponent of New England life and New England spirit. He 
drew his inspiration from the soil where he was born, from the necessities 
of the times, from the demands of human rights, and from the love of 
God and of man. 

He was meek and retiring, sensitive of the wrongs done by man to 
man, devoid of self-seeking, pure and exalted in motive, a sturdy 
defender of the right of the oppressed, and so full of trust in God that he 
could sing in his "Hymn of Trust," 

I know not where God's islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air, 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care. 

Mr. F. B, Sanborn truthfully says: "No poet of New England has 
lived so close to the actual habits of the people, in the present and the 
I)ast centuries, as did Whittier; and his poems of locality will become as 
much a feature of New England literature as are those of Burns and 
Scott in their native country. This fidelity to homely fact and profound 
sentiment have made Whittier more than any other the partial and 
religious poet of New Hampshire and Eastern Massachusetts. He has 
done in verse what Hawthorne did in prose. It was only the accident 
or accomplishment of verse which separated these two poets, and made 
one of them our most graceful and romantic prose-writer, while the other 
became our most spiritual and literal poet." 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 

1795-1881. 

Thomas Carlyle was born at Annandale, Scotland, December 4th, 
1795. His father came of a family which, although in humble circum- 
stances, was an offshoot of a Border Clan. He was a man of great 
physical and moral strength, of fearless independence, and " of a natural 
faculty equal to that of Burns;" while his mother, Margaret Aitken, was 
a woman of the fairest descent, that of the pious, the just and the wise. 
As his father was frugal, abstemious and prudent, he was able to give to 
such of his five sons as showed an aptitude for culture an excellent 
Scottish education. Thomas was taught his letters and elementary 
reading by his mother, and arithmetic by his father. His home teaching 
was supplemented at the Eccelfechan school, where at seven he was re- 
ported complete in Englisli, made satisfactory progress in arithmetic, 
and took to Latin with enthusiasm. Thence at ten he went to Annan 
Academy, where ho learned to read Latin and French fluently, and 
learned Algebra, Geometry and Arithmetic thoroughly well. Here he 
formed the acquaintance of Edward Irving, with whom he was associated 
in teaching in after life. At fourteen he entered Edinburgh University, 
meeting Sir John Leslie, who as professor of mathematics alone awak- 
ened enthusiasm in him. 

He now began a formal preparation for the ministry of the Church of 
Scotland; but the next year he competed successfully for the mathematic- 
al mastership of Annan Academy. This post was worth nearly £70 a 
year, which enabled him to support himself. He now read widely, and 
wrote of what he read with considerable power of satiric characterization. 
In 1816 he accepted the post of assistant teacher in the parish school of 
Kirkcaldy. Teaching became distasteful to him, and in 1818 he removed 
to Edinburgh. Here he was introduced to Sir Edward Brewster, who in- 
duced him to write articles chiefly on biography and geography for the 
Edinburgh Encyclojjedia. He next translated Legendre's Elements of 
Geometry. He began the study of law, but found that study as uncon- 
genial as divinity. He passed through distressful bodily and mental 
troubles, but, having unburdened himself to Irving, while walking along 
the Leith Walk, his mental troubles terminated in what he regarded as 

(107) 



108 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

his "Spiritual new birth." He then became absorbed in German litera- 
ture, especially Schiller and Goethe, thelatter having an abiding influence 
over him. 

In 1822 he became tutor to the three sons of Mr. Buller. The £200 
which he received as fees enabled him to help his family, and gave him 
leisure to write a Life of Schiller and a translation of Wilhelm Meister. 
In 1825 Carlyle went to London to superintend the publication of his 
Life of Schiller in book form. Here he made the acquaintance of such 
literary notabilities as Coleridge, Thomas Campbell, Procter and Allan 
Cunningham. 

In 182G he married Miss Jane Baillie Welsh, with whom he had been 
planning literary work for five years, and retired to a small farm in 
Scotland, where he divided his time between superintending his farm, and 
in the literary work of translating German authors, and writing for the 
Reviews. In 1833-34 appeared in installments in Frazer's Mag'azine,hi8 
most characteristic work, Sartor Resnrtus. The fantastic hero of this 
book, Diogenes Teufelsdrockh, illustrated in his life and opinions the 
mystical and grotesque "Philosophy of Clothes." Sartor Resartus is 
notable in the literary history of Carlyle as revealing the Germanization 
of his mind and his abandonment of the comparatively simple diction of 
his earlier essays. Being reduced to great straits, Jeffry lent him 
£50 by which he established himself at 5 Cheyne Row, Ivondon, where he 
resided until the day of his death. 

He now undertook to write the French Revolution, and sustained 
himself and his wife in the meantime by courses of lectures on " German 
Literature," "The Successive Periods of European Culture," "Revo- 
lutions of Modern Europe," and "Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic 
in History." His work on the French Revolution not only established 
his reputation as a literary genius of the highest order, and as Goethe 
said a new moral force, but placed him beyond the possibility of want. 
His largest work was his History of Frederick the Great, begun in 1851, 
and completed in 1865. 

In 1 865 Carlyle was elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh University by 
a large majority over Mr. Disraeli. He was installed in 1866 amidst ex- 
traordinary demonstrations of enthusiasm, and embodied his moral ex- 
periences in the form of advice to the younger members of his audience. 
A few days after this his wife was accidently killed while driving in Hyde 
Park. After this X)eriod he wrote nothing of importance. He died 
February 5th, 1881. A burial in Westminster Abbey was offered, but he 
chose to be buried among his kindred in Eccelfechan. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 109 

Diogenes Teufelsdrockh. 

(From "Sartor Resartus," by Thomas Carlyle.) 

1. Genesis {his infancy). 2. Idyllic {his childhood) . 

3, Pedagogy {his youth). 

I.— GENE'SIS (infancy). 

In a psychological point of view, it is perhaps questionable 
whether from birth and genealogy, how closely scrutinized soever, 
much insight is to be gained. Nevertheless, as in every phenom- 
enon the Beginning remains always the most notable moment; 
so, with regard to any great man, we rest not till, for our scien- 
tific profit or not, the whole circumstances of his first appearance 
in this Planet, and what manner of Public Entry he made, are 
with utmost completeness rendered manifest. To the Genesis of 
our Clothes-Philosopher, then, be this first Chapter consecrated. 
Unhappily, indeed, he seems to be of quite obscure extraction; 
uncertain, we might almost say, whether of any : so that this 
Genesis of his can properly be nothing but an Exodus (or transit 
out of Invisibility into Visibility) ; whereof the preliminary por- 
tion is nowhere forthcoming. 

'' In the village of En tepfuhl," thus writes he, in the Bag Libra, 
on various Papers, which we arrange with difficulty, " dwelt An- 
dreas Futteral and his wife; childless, in still seclusion, and 
cheerful, though now verging towards old age. Andreas had been 
grenadier Sergeant, and even regimental Schoolmaster under 
Frederick the Great; but now, quitting the halbert and ferule 
for the spade and pruning-hook, cultivated a little Orchard, on 
the produce of which he, Cincinnatus-like, lived not without dig- 
nity. Fruits, the peach, the apple, the grape, with other vari- 
eties, came in their season; all which Andreas knew how to sell; 
on evenings he smoked largely, or read (as beseemed a regi- 
mental schoolmaster), and talked to neighbors that would listen 
about the Victory of Rossbach ; and how Fritz the Only [der Ein- 
zige) had once with his own royal lips spoken to him, had 



110 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

been pleased to say, when Andreas as camp-sentinel demanded 
the password, ' Scbweig, Hund (Peace, hound) ! ' before any of 
his staff-adjutants could answer. ^Das nemi'' ich mir einen 
Konig (There is what I call a King),' would Andreas exclaim; 
but the smoke of Kunersdorf was still smarting his eyes. 

"Gretchen, the housewife, won like Desdemona by the deeds 
rather than the looks of her now veteran Othello, lived not in al- 
together military subordination; for, as Andreas said, 'the wo- 
man-kind will not drill [wer kann die Weibeivben dressiren) : 
nevertheless she at heart loved him both for valor and wisdom; 
to her a Prussian grenadier Sergeant and Regiment's School- 
master was little other than a Cicero and Cid : '^^ what you see, yet 
cannot see over, is as good as infinite. Nay, was not Andreas in 
very deed a man of order, courage, downrightness (Geradheit) ; 
that understood Biisching's Geogi^aphv, had been in the vic- 
tory of Rossbach, and left for dead in the camisade of Hoch- 
kirch? The good Gretchen, for all her fretting, watched over him 
and hovered round him as only a true housemother can: assidu- 
ously she cooked and sewed and scoured for him ; so that not 
only his old regimental sword and grenadier-cap, but the whole 
habitation and environment, where on pegs of honor they hung, 
looked ever trim and gay : a roomy painted Cottage, embowered 
in fruit trees and forest trees, evergreens and honeysuckles; rising 
many-colored from amid shaven grass plots, flowers struggling 
in through the very windows; under its long projecting eaves 
nothing but garden-tools in methodic piles (to screen them from 
rain), and seats where, especially on summer nights, a King 
might have wished to sit and smoke, and call it his. Such a 
Bauergut (Copyhold) had Gretchen given her veteran; whose 
sinewy arms, and long-disused gardening talent, had made it 
what you saw. 

''Into this umbrageous Man's-nest, one meek yellow evening 
or dusk, when the Sun, hidden indeed from terrestrial Entepfuhl, 
did nevertheless journey visible and radiant along the celestial 
Balance {Libra), it was that a Stranger of reverend aspect en- 
tered, and, with grave salutation, stood before the two rather 



THOMAS CARLYLE. Ill 

astonished housemates. He was close-muffled in a wide mantle; 
which without farther parley unfolding, he deposited therefrom 
what seemed some Basket, overhung with green Persian silk; 
saying only: Ihrlieben Leute, bier hringe ein unschlitzbares Ver- 
leihen ; nehmt es in aller Acht, sorgfiiltigst beniitzt es : mit ho- 
hein Lohn, oder wohl mit schweren Zinsen, wird\s einst ziiruckge- 
fordert. ' Good Christian people, here lies for 3- ou an invaluable 
Loan; take all heed thereof, in all carefulness employ it; with 
high recompense, or else with heavy penalty, will it one day be 
required back.' Uttering which singular words, in a clear, bell- 
like, forever memorable tone, the Stranger gracefully withdrew; 
and before Andreas or his wife, gazing in expectant wonder, had 
time to fashion either question or answer, was clean gone. 
Neither out of doors could aught of him be seen or heard; he had 
vanished in the thickets, in the dusk; the Orchard-gate stood 
quietly closed ; the Stranger was gone once and always. So sud- 
den had the whole transaction been, in the autumn stillness and 
twilight, so gentle, noisless, that the Futterals could have fancied 
it all a trick of Imagination, or some visit from an authentic 
Spirit. Only that the green-silk Basket, such as neither Imagina- 
tion nor authentic Spirits are wont to carry, still stood visible 
and tangible on their little parlor table. Towards this the aston- 
ished couple, now with lit candle, hastily turned their attention. 
Lifting the green veil, to see what invaluable it hid, they descried 
there, amid down and rich white wrappages, no Pitt Diamond or 
Hapsburg Regalia, but, in the softest sleep, a little red-colored 
Infant ! Beside it, lay a roll of gold Friedrichs, the exact amount 
of which was never publicly known ; also a Taufschein (baptismal 
certificate), wherein unfortunately nothing but the Name was de- 
cipherable; other document or indication none whatever. 

'* To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and always 
thenceforth. Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, 
did tidings transpire of any such figure as the Stranger; nor could 
the Traveler, who had passed through the neighboring Town in 
coach-and-four, be connected with this Apparition, except in the 
way of gratuitous surmise. Meanwhile, for Andreas and his wife, 



112 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

the grand practical problem was: What to do with this little 
sleeping red-colored Infant? Amid amazements and curiosities, 
which had to die away without external satisfying, they resolved, 
as in such circumstances charitable, prudent people needs must, 
on nursing it, though with spoon-meat, into whiteness, and if 
possible, into manhood. The Heavens smiled on their endeavor : 
thus has that same mysterious Individual ever since had a status 
for himself in this visible Universe, some modicum of victual and 
lodging and parade-ground ; and now expanded in bulk, faculty 
and knowledge of good and evil, he, as Herr Diogenes Teufels- 
DRocKH, professes, or is ready to profess, perhaps not altogether 
without effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, the new 
Science of Things in General." 

Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he 
well might, that these facts, first communicated, by the good 
Gretchen Futteral, in his twelfth year, " produced on the boyish 
heart and fancy a quite indelible impression. Who this reverend 
Personage," he says, "that glided into the Orchard Cottage 
when the Sun was in Libra, and then, as on spirit's wings, glided 
out again, might be ? An inexpressible desire, full of love and of 
sadness, has often since struggled within me to shape an answer. 
Ever, in my distresses and my loneliness, has Fantasy turned, full 
of longing (sehnsuchtsvoU), to thsit unknown Father, who per- 
haps far from me, perhaps near, either way invisible, might have 
taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie screened from many 
a woe. Thou beloved Father, dost thou still, shut out from me 
only by thin penetrable curtains of earthly Space, wend to and 
fro among the crowd of the living? Or art thou hidden by those 
far thicker curtains of the Everlasting Night or rather of the 
Everlasting Day, through which my mortal eye and outstretched 
arms need not strive to reach? Alas, I know not, and in vain 
vex myself to know. More than once, heart-deluded, have I 
taken for thee this and the other noble-looking Stranger ; and 
approached him wistfully, with infinite regard ; but he too had to 
repel me, he too was not thou. 

<* And yet, O Man born of Woman," cries the Autobiographer, 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 113 

with one of his sudden whirls, ** wherein is my case peculiar? 
Hadst thou, any more than I, a Father whom thou knowest? 
The Andreas and Gretchen, or the Adam and Eve, who led thee 
into Life, and for a time suckled and pap-fed thee there, 
whom thou namest Father and Mother; these were, like 
mine, but thy nursing-father and nursing-mother : thy true Be- 
ginning and Father is in Heaven, whom with the bodily eye thou 
shalt never behold, but only with the spiritual. 

" The little green veil," added he, among much similar moral- 
izing, and embroiled discoursing, ''I yet keep, still more insep- 
arably the Name, Diogenes Teufelsdruckh. From the veil can 
nothing be inferred : a piece of now quite faded Persian silk, like 
thousands of others. On the Name I have many times meditated 
and conjectured ; but neither in this lay there any clue. That it 
was my unknown Father's name I must hesitate to believe. To 
no purpose have I searched through all the Herald's Books, in 
and without the German Empire, and through all manner of 
Subscriber-Lists (Pmnumeranten). Militia-Rolls, and other 
Name-catalogues ; extraordinary names as we have in Germany, 
the name Teufelsdruckh, except as appended to my own person, 
nowhere occurs. Again, what may the unchristian rather than 
Christian 'Diogenes,' mean? Did that reverend Basket-bearer 
intend, by such designation, to shadow forth my future destiny, 
or his own present malign humor? Perhaps the latter, perhaps 
both. Thou ill-starred Parent, who like an Ostrich hadst to 
leave thy ill-starred offspring to be hatched into self-support by 
the Tnere sky -influences of Chance, can thy pilgrimage have been a 
smooth one? Beset by misfortune thou doubtless hast been; or 
indeed by the worst figure of Misfortune by Misconduct. Often 
have I fancied how, in thy hard life-battle, thou wert shot at, 
and slung at, wounded, hand-fettered, hamstrung, browbeaten 
and bedeviled by the Time-Spirit (Zeitgeist) in thyself and others, 
till the good soul first given thee was seared into grim rage; and 
thou hadst nothing for it but to leave in me an indignant appeal 
to the future, and living speaking Protest against the Devil, as 
that same Spirit not of the Time only, but of Time itself, is well 

2 T. L.— 8 



114 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

named! Which Appeal and Protest, may I now modestly add, 
was not perhaps quite lost in air. 

<'For indeed, as Walter Shandy often insisted, there is much, 
nay almost all, in Names. The name is the earliest Garment you 
wrap round the earth-visiting Me; to which it thenceforth cleaves, 
more tenaciously (for there are Names that have lasted nigh 
thirty centuries), than the very skin. And now from without, 
what mystic influences does it not send inwards, even to the cen- 
ter; especially in those plastic first-times, when the whole soul is 
yet infantine, soft, and the invisible seed-grain will grow to be an 
all overshadowing tree! Names? Could I unfold the influence 
of Names, which are the most important of all Clothings, I werea 
second greater Trismegistus. Not only all common Speech, but 
Science, Poetry itself, is no other, if thou consider it, than a right 
Naming. Adam's first task was giving names to natural Appear- 
ances: what is ours still but a continuation of the same; by the 
Appearances exotic- vegetable, organic, mechanic, stars, or starry 
movements (as in Science); or (as in Poetry) passions, virtues, 
calamities, God-attributes, Gods? — In a very plain sense the 
Proverb says. Call one a thief, and he will steal ; in almost simi- 
lar sense may we not perhaps say. Call one Diogenes Teufels- 
drdckh, and he will open the Philosophy of Clothes? " 

"Meanwhile the incipient Diogenes, like others, all ignorant of 
his Why, his How, or Whereabout, was opening his eyes to the kind 
Light; sprawling out his ten fingers and toes; listening, tasting, 
feeling ; in a word , by all his Five Senses, still more by his Sixth Sense 
of Hunger, and a whole infinitude of inward, spiritual, half-awak- 
ened Senses, endeavoring daily to acquire for himself some knowl- 
edge of this strange Universe where he had arrived, be his task 
therein what it might. Infinite was his progress; thus in some 
fifteen months, he could perform the miracle of — Speech! To 
breed a fresh Soul, is it not like brooding a fresh (Celestial) Egg; 
wherein as yet all is formless, powerless; yet by degrees organic 
elements and fibers shoot through the watery albumen; and 
out of vague Sensation grows Thought, grows Fantasy and 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 115 

Force, and we have Philosophies, Dynasties, nay Poetries and 
Religions ! 

"Young Diogenes, or rather young Gneschen, for by such di- 
minutive had they in their fondness named him, traveled forward 
to those high consummations, by quick, yet easy stages. The 
Futterals to avoid vain talk, and moreover keep the roll of gold 
Friedrichs safe, gave out thafc he was a grand-nephew; the or- 
phan of some sister's daughter, suddenly deceased, in Andreas's 
distant Prussian birthland ; of whom, as of her indigent sorrow- 
ing widower, little enough was known at Entepfuhl. Heedless of 
all which, the Nursling took to his spoon-meat, and throve. I 
have heard him noted as a still infant, that kept his mind much 
to himself; above all, that seldom or never cried. He already 
felt that time was precious; that he had other work cut out for 
him than whimpering." 

Such, after utmost painful search and collation among these 
miscellaneous Paper-masses, is all the notice we can gather of 
Herr Teufelsdrockh's genealogy. More imperfect, 'more enig- 
matic it can seem to few readers than to us. The Professor, in 
whom truly we more and more discern a certain satirical turn, 
and deep under-currents of roguish whim, for the present stands 
pledged in honor, so we will not doubt him ; but seems it not 
conceivable that, by the good " Gretchen Futteral," or some 
other perhaps interested party, he has himself been deceived? 
Should these sheets, translated or not, ever reach the Entepfuhl 
Circulating Library, some cultivated native of that district might 
feel called to afford explanation. Nay, since Books, like invisible 
scouts, permeate the whole habitable globe, and Timbuctoo it- 
self is not safe from British Literature, may not some Copy find 
out even the mysterious basket-bearing Stranger, w^ho in a 
state of extreme senility perhaps still exists; and gently force 
even him to disclose himself; to claim openly a son, in whom any 
father may feel pride ? 



116 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

II.— IDYLLIC (childhood). 

"Happy season of Childhood!" exclaims Teufelsdrockh : 
<'Kind nature, that art to all a bountiful mother; that visitest 
the poor man's hut with auroral radiance; and for thy Nursling 
hast provided a soft swathing of Love and infinite Hope, where- 
in he waxes and slumbers, danced-round {umgaukelt) by sweetest 
Dreams ? If the paternal Cottage still" shuts us in, its roof still 
screens us : with a Father we have as yet a prophet, priest and 
king, and an Obedience that makes us free. The young spirit has 
awakened out of Eternity, and knows not what we mean by 
Time; as yet Time is no fast-hurrying stream, but a sportful 
sunlit ocean; years to the child are as ages: ah! the secret of 
Vicissitude, of that slower or quicker decay and ceaseless down- 
rushing of the universal World-fabric, from the granite mountain 
to the man or day-moth, is yet unknown; and in a motionless 
Universe, we taste, what afterwards in this quick-whirling Uni- 
verse, is forever denied us, the balm of Rest. Sleep on, thou fair 
Child, for thy long rough journey is at hand! A little while, and 
thou too shalt sleep no more, but thy very dreams shall be mimic 
battles; thou too, with old Arnauld,^^ wilt have to say in stern 
patience: ^Rest? Rest? Shall I not have all Eternity to rest 
in?' Celeotial Nepenthe! though a Pyrrhus conquer empires, 
and an Alexander sack the world, he finds thee not; and thou 
hast once fallen gently, of thy own accord, on the eyelids, on the 
heart of every mother's child. For as yet, sleep and waking are 
one: the fair Life-garden rustles infinite around, and everywhere 
is dewy fragrance, and the budding of Hope; which budding, if 
in youth, too frostnipt, it grow to flowers, will in manhood yield 
no fruit, but a prickly, bitter-rinded stone-fruit, of which the 
fewest can find the kernel." 

In such rose-colored light does our Professor, as Poets are 
wont, look back on his childhood ; the historical details of which 
(to say nothing of much other vague oratorical matter) he ac- 
cordingly dwells on with an almost wearisome minuteness. We 
hear of Entepfuhl standing "in trustful derangement" among 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 117 

the woody slopes ; the paternal Orchard flanking it as extreme 
outpost from below; the little Kuhbach gushing kindly by, 
among beech-rows, through river after river, into the Donau, 
into the Black Sea, into the Atmosphere and Universe; and how 
" the brave old Linden," stretching like a parasol of twenty ells 
in radius, overtopping all other rows and clumps, towered up 
from the central Agora and Campus Martius of the Village, like 
its Sacred Tree; and how the old men sat talking under its 
shadow (Gneschen often greedily listening), and the wearied 
laborers reclined, and the unwearied children sported, and the 
young men and maidens often danced to flute-music. "Glorious 
summer twilights," cries Teufelsdr()ckh, "when the Sun, like a 
proud Conqueror and Imperial Taskmaster, turned his back, 
with his gold-purple emblazonry, and all his fire-clad bodyguard 
(of Prismatic Colors) ; and the tired brick-makers of this clay 
Earth might steal a little frolic, and those few meek Stars would 
not tell of them!" 

Then we have long details of the Weinlesen (Vintage), the 
Harvest-Home, Christmas, and so forth; with a whole cycle of 
the Entepfuhl Children's games, differing apparently by mere su- 
perficial shades from those of other countries. Concerning all 
which, we shall here, for obvious reasons, say nothing. What 
cares the w^orld for our as yet miniature Philosopher's achieve- 
ments under that "brave old Linden?" Or even where is the 
use of such practical reflections as the following: "In all the 
sports of Children, were it only in their wanton breakages and 
defacements, you shall discern a creative instinct (schaffenden 
Trieh) ; the Mankin feels that he is a born Man, that his voca- 
tion is to work. The choicest present you can make him is a 
Tool ; be it knife or pen-gun, for construction or for destruction ; 
either way it is for Work, for Change. In gregarious sports of 
skill or strength, the Boy trains himself to Co-operation, for war 
or peace, as governor or governed ; the little Maid again, prov- 
ident of her domestic destiny, takes with preference to dolls." 

Perhaps, however, we may give this anecdote, considering who 
it is that relates it : " My first short-clothes were of yellow serge; 



118 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

or rather, I should say, mj first short-cloth, for the vesture was 
one and indivisible, reaching from neck to ankle, a mere body 
with four limbs; of which fashion how little could I then divine 
the architectural, how much less the moral significance ! " 

More graceful is the following little picture : '' On fine evenings 
I was wont to carry forth my supper (bread-crumbs boiled in 
milk), and eat it out-of-doors. On the coping of the Orchard- 
wall, which I could reach by climbing, or still more easily if 
Father Andreas would set up the pruning-ladder, my porringer 
was placed ; there, many a sunset, have I, looking at the distant 
western Mountains, consumed, not without relish, my evening 
meal. Those hues of gold and azure, that hush of world's expec- 
tation as Day died, were still a Hebrew Speech for me; neverthe- 
less I was looking at the fair illuminated Letters, and had an eye 
for their guilding." 

With "the little one's friendship for cattle and poultry" we 
shall not much intermeddle. It may be that hereby he acquired 
a "certain deeper sympathy with animated Nature:" but when, 
we would ask, saw any man, in a collection of Biographical 
Documents, such a piece as this: "Impressive enough [bedeu- 
tiuigsvoU) was it to hear, in early morning, the Swineherd's 
horn ; and know that so many hungry happy quadrupeds were, 
on all sides, starting in hot haste to join him, for breakfast on 
the Heath. Or to see them at eventide, all marching in again, 
with short squeak, almost in military order; and each, topo- 
graphically correct, trotting- off in succession to the right or left, 
through its own lane, to its own dwelling; till old Kunz, at the 
Village-head, now left alone, blew his last blast, and retired for 
the night. We are wont to love the Hog chiefly in the form of 
Ham; yet did not these bristly thick-skinned beings here mani- 
fest intelligence, perhaps humor of character; at any rate, a 
touching, trustful submissiveness to Man, — who, were he but a 
Swineherd, in darned gabardine, and leather breeches, more re- 
sembling slate or discolored-tin breeches, is still the Hierarch of 
this lower world ? " 

It is maintained, by Helvetius and his set, that an infant o! 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 119 

genius is quite the same as any other infant, only that certain 
surprisingly favorable influences accompany him through life, 
especially through childhood, and expand him, while others lie 
close-folded and continue dunces. Herein, say they, consists the 
whole difference between an inspired Prophet and a double- 
barrelled Game-preserver; the inner man of the one has been 
fostered into generous development; that of the other, crushed- 
down perhaps by vigor of animal digestion, and the like, has 
exuded and evaporated, or at best sleeps now irresuscitably 
stagnant at the bottom of his stomach. <' With which opinion," 
cries Teufelsdrockh, ''I should as soon agree as with this other, 
that an acorn might, by favorable or unfavorable influences of 
soil and climate, be nursed into a cabbage, or the cabbage-seed 
into an oak. 

*' Nevertheless," continues he, ''I too acknowledge the all but 
omnipotence of early culture and nurture; hereby we have either 
a doddered dwarf bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing 
tree; either a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green 
one. Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philos- 
ophers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circum- 
stances of their education, what furthered, what hindered, what 
in any way modified it; to which duty, nowadays so pressingfor 
many a German Autobiographer, I also zealously address my- 
self."— Thou rogue! Is it by short-clothes of yellow serge, and 
swineherd horns, that an infant of genius is educated ? And yet, 
as usual, it ever remains doubtful whether he is laughing in his 
sleeve at these Autobiographical times of ours, or writing from 
the abundance of his own fond ineptitude. For he continues: 
"If among the ever-streaming currents of Sights, Hearings, 
Feelings for Pain or Pleasure, whereby, as in a Magic Hall, 
young Gneschen went about environed, I might venture to select 
and specify, perhaps these following were also of the number: 

"Doubtless, as childish sports call forth Intellect, Activity, so 
the young creature's Imagination was stirred up, and a Historical 
tendency given him by the narrative habits of Father Andreas; 
who, with his battle-reminiscences, and gray austere yet hearty 



120 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

patriarchal aspect, could not but appear another Ulysses and 
'much-enduring Man.' Eagerly I hung upon his tales, when lis- 
tening neighbors enlivened the hearth; from these perils and these 
travels, wild and far almost as Hades itself, a dim world of Ad- 
venture expanded itself within me. Incalculable also w^as the 
knowledge I acquired in standing by the Old Men under theLin- 
dentree: the whole of Immensity was yet new to me; and had not 
these reverend seniors, talkative enough, beenemployed in partial 
surveys thereof for nigh fourscore years? With amazement I be- 
gan to discover that Entepfuhl stood in the middle of a Country, 
of a World; that there was such a thing as History, as Biography; 
to which I also, one day, by hand and tongue, might contribute. 

"In a like sense worked the Postwagen (Stagecoach), which, 
slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage, wended 
through our Village: northwards, truly, in the dead of night; 
yet southwards, visibly at eventide. Not till my eighth year did I 
reflect that this Postwagen could be other than some terrestrial 
Moon, rising and setting by mere Law of Nature, like the heav- 
enly one : that it came on made highways, from far cities towards 
far cities; weaving them like a monstrous shuttle in closer and 
closer union. It was then that, independently of Schiller's Wil- 
helm Tell, I made this not quite insignificant reflection (so true 
also in spiritual things): Any road, this simple Entepfuhl road, 
will lead you to the end of the World! 

"Why mention our Swallows, which, out of far Africa, as I 
learned, threading their way over seas and mountains, corporate 
cities and belligerent nations, yearly found themselves, with the 
month of May , snug-lodged in our Cottage Lobby ? The hospitable 
Father (for cleanliness' sake) had fixed a little bracket plumb un- 
der their nest : there they built, and caught flies, and twittered 
and bred ; and all, I chiefly, from the heart loved them. Bright 
nimble creatures, who taught you the mason-craft ; nay, stranger 
still, gave you a masonic incorporation, almost social police? 
For if, by ill chance, and when time pressed, your House fell, have 
I not seen five neighborly Helpers appear next day ; and swash- 
ing to and fro, with animated, loud, long-drawn chirpings, 



THOMAS CARLYLE. . 121 

and activity almost superhirundine, complete it again before 
nightfall? 

" But undoubtedly the grand summary of Entepfuhl child's 
culture, where as in a funnel its manifold influences were concen- 
trated and simultaneously poured down on us, was the annual 
Cattle-fair. Here, assembling from all the four winds, came the 
elements of an unspeakable hurly-burly. Nut-brown maids and 
nut-brown men, all clear-washed, loud laughing, bedizened and 
beribboned ; who came for dancing, for treating, and if possible, 
for happiness. Topbooted Graziers from the North; Swiss 
Brokers, Italian Drovers, also topbooted, from the South; these 
with their subalterns in leather jerkins, leather skull-caps, and 
long oxgoads; shouting in half-articulate speech, amid the in- 
articulate barking and bellowing. Apart stood Potters from far 
Saxony, with their crockery in fair rows ; Niirnberg Pedlers, in 
booths that to me seemed richer than Ormuz bazaars ; Showmen 
from the Lago Maggiore; detachments of the Wiener Schub (Off- 
scourings of Vienna) vociferously superintending games of 
chance. Ballad-singers braved , Auctioneers grew hoarse ; cheap 
New Wine (heuriger) flowed like water, still worse confounding 
the confusion; and high over all, vaulted, in ground-and-lofty 
tumbling, a particolored Merry-Andrew, like the genius of the 
place and of Life itself. 

''Thus encircled by the mystery of Existence; under the deep 
heavenly Firmament; waited on by the four golden seasons, with 
their vicissitudes of contribution, for even grim winter brought 
its skating-matches and shooting-matches, its snowstorms and 
Christmas-carols,— did the Child sit and learn. These things were 
the Alphabet, whereby in after-time he was to syllable and partly 
read the grand Volume of the World : what matters it whether 
such Alphabet be in large gilt letters or in small ungilt ones, so 
you have an eye to read it? For Gneschen, eager to learn, the 
very act of looking thereon was a blessedness that gilded all : his 
existence was a bright, soft element of Joy; out of which, as in 
Prospero's Island, ^^ wonder after wonder bodied itself forth, to 
teach by charming. 



122 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

''Nevertheless, I were but a vain dreamer to say, that even 
then my felicity was perfect. I had, once for all, come down from 
Heaven into the Earth. Among the rainbow colors that glowed 
on my horizon, lay even in childhood a dark ring of Care, as yet 
no thicker than a thread, and often quite overshone; yet always 
it reappeared, nay ever waxing broader and broader ; till in after- 
years it almost overshadowed my whole canopy, and threatened 
to ingulf me in final night. It was the ring of Necessity whereby 
we are all begirt; happy he for whom a kind heavenly sun bright- 
ens it into a ring of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful pris- 
matic diffractions ; yet ever, as basis and as bourn for our whole 
being, it is there. 

" For the first few years of our terrestrial Apprenticeship, we 
have not much work to do ; but, boarded and lodged gratis, are 
set down mostly to look about us over the workshop, and see 
others work, till we have understood the tools a little, and can 
handle this and that. If good Passivity alone, and not good 
Passivity and good Activity together, were the thing wanted, 
then was my early position favorable beyond the most. In all 
that respects openness of Sense, affectionate Temper, ingenuous 
Curiosity, and the fostering of these, what more could I have 
wished? On the other side, however, things went not so well. 
My Active Power (Thatkraft) was unfavorably hemmed in; of 
which misfortune how many traces yet abide with me I In an 
orderly house, where the litter of children's sports is hateful 
enough, your training is too stoical ; rather to bear and forbear 
than to make and do. I was forbid much : wishes in any measure 
held I had to renounce ; everywhere a straight bond of Obedience 
infiexibly held me down. Thus already Freewill often came in 
painful collision with Necessity; so that my tears flowed, and at 
seasons the Child itself might taste that root of bitterness, where- 
with the whole fruitage of our life is mingled and tempered. 

"In which habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond 
measure safer to err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our 
universal duty and destiny, wherein whoso will not bend must 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 123 

break: too early and too thoroui^hly we cannot be trained to 
know that Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to Should, 
and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to Shall. 
Hereby was laid for me the basis of worldly Discretion, nay of 
Morality itself. Let me not quarrel with my upbringing. It was 
rigorous, too frugal, compressively secluded, every way unscien- 
tific; yet in that very strictness and domestic solitude might 
there not lie the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem from 
which all noble fruit must grow? Above all, how unskilled so- 
ever, it was loving, it was well-meant, honest; whereby every de- 
ficiency was helped. My kind Mother, for as such I must ever 
love the good Gretchen, did me one altogether invaluable service: 
she taught me, less indeed by word than by act and daily rever- 
ent look and habitude, her own simple version of the Christian 
Faith. Andreas too attended Church; yet more like a parade 
duty, for which he in the other world expected pay with arrears, 
— as, I trust, he has received; but my Mother, with a true wo- 
man's heart, and fi ne though uncultivated sense, wa s in thestrictest 
acceptation Religious. How indestructibly the Good grows, and 
propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of Evil ! 
The highest whom I knew on Earth I here saw bowed down, with 
awe unspeakable, before a Higher in Heaven : such things, espe- 
cially in infancy, reach inwards to the very core of your being; 
mysteriously does a Holy of Holies build itself into visibility in 
the mysterious deeps; and Reverence, the divinest in man, springs 
forth undying from its mean envelopment of Fear. Wouldst 
thou rather be a peasant's son that knew, were it never so rudely, 
there was a God in Heaven and in Man; or a duke's son that 
only knew there were two-and-thirty quarters on the family- 
coach?" 

To which last question we must answer: Beware, Teufels- 
drockh, of spiritual pride I 



124 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

m.— PEDAGOGY (youth). 

Hitherto we see young Gneschen,in his indivisible case of yel- 
low serge, borne forward mostly on the arms of Kind Nature 
alone; seated, indeed, and much to his mind, in the terrestrial 
workshop, but (except his soft hazel eyes, which we doubt not al- 
ready gleamed with a still intelligence) called for little voluntary 
movement there. Hitherto, accordingly, his aspect is rather 
generic, that of an incipient Philosopher and Poet in the abstract; 
perhaps it would puzzle Herr Heuschrecke himself to say wherein 
the special Doctrine of Clothes is as yet foreshadowed or beto- 
kened. For with Gneschen, as with others, the Man may indeed 
stand pictured in the Boy (at least all the pigments are there) ; 
yet only some half of the Man stands in the Child or young Boy, 
namely his Passive endowment, not his Active. The more impa- 
tient are we to discover what figure he cuts in this latter capac- 
ity ; how, when to use his own words, " he understands the tools 
a little, and can handle this or that,'- he will proceed to handle it. 

Here, however, may be the place to state that in much of our 
Philosopher's history, there is something of an almost Hindoo 
character: nay perhaps in that so well-fostered and everyway 
excellent "Passivity" of his, which, with no free development of 
the antagonist Activity, distinguished his childhood, we may de- 
tect the rudiments of much that, in after days, and still in these 
present days, astonishes the world. For the shallow-sighted Teu- 
felsdrockh is oftenest a man without Activity of any kind, a No- 
man; for the deep-sighted, again, a man with Activity almost 
superabundant, yet so spiritual, close-hidden, enigmatic, that no 
mortal can foresee its explosions, or even when it has exploded, 
so much as ascertam its significance. A dangerous, difficult 
temper for the modern European; above all, disadvantageous in 
the hero of a Biography ! Now as heretofore it will behoove the 
Editor of these pages, were it never so unsuccessfully, to do his 
endeavor. 

Among the earliest tools of any complicacy which a man, es- 
pecially a man of letters, gets to handle, are his Class-books. On 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 125 

this portion of his History, Teufelsdrockh looks down professedly 
as indifferent. Reading he "cannot remember ever to have 
learned;" so perhaps had it by nature. He says generally: 
<'0f the insignificant portion of my Education, which depended 
on Schools, there need almost no notice be taken. I learned what 
others learn; and kept it stored-by in a corner of my head, see- 
ing as yet no manner of use in it. My Schoolmaster, a down- 
bent, broken-hearted, underfoot martyr, as others of that guild 
are, did little for me, except discover that he could do little: he, 
good soul, pronounced me a genius, fit for the learned pro- 
fessions; and that I must be sent to the Gymnasium, and one 
day to the University. Meanwhile, what printed thing soever 
I could meet with I read. My very copper pocket-money I laid- 
out on stall-literature; which, as it accumulated, I with my own 
hands sewed into volumes. By this means was the young head 
furnished with a considerable miscellany of things and shadows 
of things: History in authentic fragments lay mingled with 
Fabulous chimeras, wherein also was reality ; and the whole not 
as dead stuff, but as living pabulum, tolerably nutritive for a 
mind as yet so peptic." 

That the Entepfuhl Schoolmaster Judged well, we now know. 
Indeed, already in the youthful Gneschen, with all his outward 
stillness, there may have been manifest an inward vivacity that 
promised much; symptoms of a spirit singularly open, thought- 
ful, almost poetical. Thus, to say nothing of his Suppers on the 
Orchard-wall, and other phenomena of that earlier period, 
have many readers of these pages stumbled, in their twelfth 
year, on such reflections as the following: "It struck me 
much, as I sat by Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched 
it flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamlet 
had flowed and gurgled, through all changes of weather and of 
fortune, from beyond the earliest date of History. Yes, probably 
on the morning when Joshua forded Jordan; even as at the 
midday when Caesar, doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet 
kept his commentaries dry,— this little Kuhbach, assidous as 
Tiber, Euortas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilder- 



126 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ness, as yet unnamed, unseen; here, too, as in the Euphrates 
and the Ganges, is a vein or veinlet of the grand World-circula- 
tion of Waters, which, with its atmospheric arteries, has lasted 
and lasts simply with the world. Thou fool! Nature alone is 
antique, and the oldest art a mushroom ; that idle crag thou 
sittest on is six -thousand years of age." In which littlethought, 
as in a little fountain, may there not lie the beginning of those 
well-nigh unutterable meditations on the grandeur and mystery 
of Time, and its relation to Eternity, which play such a part in 
this Philosophy of Clothes ? 

Over his Gymnasic and Academic years the Professor by no 
means lingers so lyrical and joyful as over his childhood. Green 
sunny tracts there are still ; but intersected by bitter rivulets of 
tears, here and there stagnating into sour marshes of discontent. 
'' With my first view of the Hinterschlag Gymnasium," writes he, 
"my evil days began. Well do I still remember the red sunny 
Whitsuntide morning, when, trotting full of hope by the side of 
Father Andreas, I entered the main street of the place, and saw 
its steeple-clock (then striking Eight) and Schuldthurm (Jail), 
and the aproned or disaproned Burghers moving in to breakfast: 
a little dog, in mad terror, was rushing past; for some human 
imps had tied a tin-kettle to its tail; thus did the agonized 
creature, loud-jingling, career through the whole length of the 
Borough, and become notable enough. Fit emblem of many a 
Conquering Hero, to whom Fate (wedding Fantasy to Sense, as 
it often elsewhere does) has malignantly^ appended a tin-kettle of 
Ambition, to chase him on; which the faster he runs, urges him 
the faster, the more loudly and more foolishly! Fit emblem 
also of much that awaited myself, in that mischievous Den ; as 
in the World, whereof it was a portion and epitome! 

"Alas, the kind beech-rows of Entepfuhl were hiddeninthedis- 
tance: I was among strangers, harshly, at best indifferently, 
disposed towards me; the young heartfelt, for thefirst time, quite 
orphaned and alone." His schoolfellows, as is usual, persecuted 
him: "They were Boys," he says, "mostly rude Boys, and 
obeyed the impulse of rude Nature, which bids the deer-herd fall 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 127 

upon any stricken hart, the duck-flock put to death any broken- 
winged brother or sister, and on all hands the strong tyrannize 
over the weak." He admits, that though ''perhaps in an un- 
usual degree morally courageous, he succeeded ill in battle, and 
would fain have avoided it ;" aresult, as would appear, owing less 
to his small personal stature (for in passionate seasons he was 
''incredibly nimble") than to his "virtuous principles:" " if it 
was disgraceful to be beaten," says he, "it was only a shade less 
disgraceful to have so much as fought; thus was I drawn two 
ways at once, and in this important element of school-history, 
the war-element, had little but sorrow." On the whole, that same 
excellent "Passivity," so notable in Teufelsdrockh's childhood, 
is here visibly enough again getting nourishment. "He wept 
often; indeed to such a degree that he was nicknamed Der Weinende 
(the Tearful), which epithet, till towards his thirteenth year, was 
indeed not quite unmerited . Only at rare intervals did the young 
soul burst forth into fire-eyed rage, and, with a stormfulness 
(Ungestum) under which the boldest quailed, assert that he too 
had Rights of Man, or at least of Mankin." In all which, 
who does not discern a fine flower-tree and cinnamon-tree 
(of genius) nigh choked among pumpkins, reed-grass and ignoble 
shrubs ; and forced if it would live, to struggle upwards only, and 
not outwards; into a height quite sickly, and disproportioned 
to its breadth. 

We find, moreover, that his Greek and Latin were "mechanic- 
ally" taught; Hebrew scarce even mechanically; much else which 
they called History, Cosmography, Philosophy, and so forth, no 
better than not at all. So that, except inasmuch as Nature was 
still busy; and he himself "went about, as was of old his wont, 
among the Craftsmen's workshops, there learning many things; " 
and farther lighted on some small store of curious reading, in 
Hans Watchel the Cooper's house, where he lodged,— his time, it 
would appear, was utterly wasted. Which facts the Professor 
has not yet learned to look upon with any contentment. Indeed, 
throughout the whole of this Bag Scorpio, where we now are, 
and often in the following Bag, he shows himself unusually 



128 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

animated on the matter of Education, and not without some 
touch of what we might presume to be anger. 

''My Teachers," says he, ''were hidebound Pedants, without 
knowledge of man's nature, or of boy's; or of aught save their 
lexicons and quarterly account-books. Innumerable dead Voca- 
bles (no dead Language, for they themselves knew no Language) 
they crammed into us, and called it fostering the growth of mind. 
How can an inanimate, mechanical Gerundgrinder, the like of 
whom will, in a subsequent century, be manufactured at Niirn- 
berg out of wood and leather, foster the growth of anything; 
much more of Mind, which grows, not like a vegetable (byhaving 
its roots littered with etymological compost), but like a spirit, 
by mysterious contact of Spirit ; Thought kindling itself at the 
fire of living Thought? How shall he give kindling, in whose 
own inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt-out to a 
dead grammatical cinder? The Hinterschlag Professors knew 
syntax enough ; and of the human soul thus much : that it had a 
faculty called Memory, and could be acted-on through the muscu- 
lar integument by appliance of birch-rods. 

"Alas, so is it everywhere, so will it ever be; till the Hodman 
is discharged or reduced to hodbearing; and an Architect is 
hired, and on all hands fitly encouraged: till communities and 
individuals discover, not without surprise, that fashioning the 
souls of a generation by Knowledge can rank on a level with 
blowing their bodies to pieces by Gunpowder; that with Generals 
and Field Marshals for killing, there should be world-honored 
Dignitaries, and were it possible, true God-ordained Priests for 
teaching. But as yet, though the soldier wears openly, and even 
parades, his butchering-tool, nowhere, far as I have traveled, did 
the Schoolmaster make show of his instructing-tool : nay, were 
he to walk abroad with birch girt on thigh, as if he therefrom 
expected honor, would there not, among the idler class, perhaps 
a certain levity be excited ? " 

In the third year of this Gymnasic period. Father Andreas 
seems to have died : the young Scholar, otherwise so maltreated, 
saw himself for the first time clad outwardly in sables, and in- 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 129 

wardly in quite inexpressible melancholy. ''The dark bottom- 
less Abyss, that lies under our feet, had yawned open; the pale 
kingdoms of Death, with all their innumerable silent nations and 
generations, stood before him; the inexorable word Never! now 
first showed its meaning. My Mother wept, and her sorrow got 
vent; but in my heart there lay a wholelake of tears,pent up in silent 
desolation. Nevertheless the unworn Spirit is strong; Life is so 
healthful that it even finds nourishment in Death : these stern ex- 
periences, planted down by Memory in my Imagination, rose 
there to a whole cypress-forest sad but beautiful; waving, with 
not unmelodious sighs, in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sun- 
shine, through long years of youth: — as in manhood also it 
does, and will do; for I have now pitched my tent under a Cy- 
press-tree; the Tomb is now my inexpugnable Fortress, ever 
close by the gate of which I look upon the hostile armaments, 
and pains and penalties of tyrannous Life placidly enough and 
listen to its loudest threatenings with a still smile. ye loved 
ones, that already sleep in the noisless Bed of Rest, whom in life 
I could only weep for and never help; and ye, who wide-scattered 
still toil lonely in the monster-bearing Desert, dyeing the 
flinty ground with your blood,— yet a little while, and we shall 
all meet there, and our Mother's bosom will screen us all; and 
Oppression's harness, and Sorrow's firewhip, and all the Gehenna 
Bailiffs that patrol and inhabit ever-vexed Time, cannot thence- 
forth harm us any more ! " 

Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a labored 
Character of the deceased Andreas Futteral; of his natural 
ability, his deserts in life (as Prussian Sergeant) ; with long his- 
torical inquiries into the genealogy of the Futteral Family, here 
traced back as far as Henry the Fowler: the whole of which we 
pass over, not without astonishment. It only concerns us to 
add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen revealed to 
her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred ; or indeed of 
any kindred, having come into historical existence in the way 
already known to us. " Thus was I doubly orphaned," says he; 
"bereft not only of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sor- 

2 T. L.— 9 



130 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

row and Wonder, here suddenly united, could not but produce 
abundant fruit. Such a disclosure, in such a season, struck its 
roots through my whole nature ; ever till the years of mature 
manhood, it mingled with my whole thoughts, was as the stem 
whereon all my day-dreams and night-dreams grew. A certain 
poetic elevation, yet also a corresponding civic depression, it 
naturally imparted : 1 Wcis like no other; in which fixed idea, 
leading sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfullest results, 
may there not lie the first spring of tendencies, which in my Life 
have become remarkable enough? As in birth, so in action, 
speculation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not 
numerous." 

In the Bag Sagittarms, as we atlength discover, Teufelsdrockh 
has become a University man; though how, when, or of what 
quality, will nowhere disclose itself with the smallest certaint3\ 
Few things, in the way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, 
can now surprise our readers; not even the total want of dates, 
almost without parallel in a Biographical work. So enigmatic, 
so chaotic we have always found, and must always look to find, 
these scattered Leaves. In Sagittarius, however, Teufelsdrockh 
begins to show himself even more than usually Sibylline: frag- 
ments of all sorts; scraps of regular Memoir, College-Exercises, 
Programmes, Professional Testimoniums, Milkscores, torn 
Billets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast; all blown 
together as if by merest chance, henceforth bewildered the same 
Historian. To combine any picture of these University, and the 
subsequent, years; much more, to decipher therein any illustra- 
tive primordial elements of the Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such 
a problem as the reader may imagine. 

So much we can see; darkly, as though the foliage of some 
wavering thicket : a youth of no common endowment, who has 
passed happily through Childhood, less happily yet still vigor- 
ously through Boyhood, now at length perfect in ''dead voca- 
bles," and set down as he hopes, by the living Fountain, thereto 
superadd Ideas and Capabilities. From such Fountain he draws, 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 131 

diligently', thirstily, yet never or seldom vvitli his whole heart, for 
the water nowise suits his palate; discouragements, entangle- 
ments, aberrations are discoverable or supposable. Nor perhaps 
are even pecuniary distresses wanting; for " the good Gretchen, 
who in spite of advices from not disinterested relatives has sent 
him hither, must after a time withdraw her willing but too 
feeble hand."' Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty and 
manifold Chagrin, the Humor of that young Soul, what char- 
acter is in him, first decisively reveals itself; and, like strong sun- 
shine in weeping skies, gives out variety of colors, some of which 
are prismatic. Thus, with the aid of Time and of what Time 
brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh waxed- into 
manly stature; and into so questionable an aspect, that we ask 
with new eagerness. How he specially came by it, and regret anew 
that there is no more explicit answer. Certain of the intelligible 
and partially significant fragments, which are few in number, 
shall be extracted from that Limbo of a Paperbag and pre- 
sented with the usual preparation. 

As if, in the Bag Scorpio, Teufelsdrockh had not already ex- 
pectorated his antipedagogic spleen ; as if, from the name Sagit- 
tarius, he had thought himself called upon to shoot arrows, we 
here again fall in with such matter as this : ''The University 
where I was educated still stands vivid enough in my remem- 
brance, and I know its name well; which name, however, I, from 
tenderness to existing interests and persons, shall in nowise di- 
vulge. It is my painful duty to say that, out of England and 
Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Universities. 
This is indeed a time when right Education is, as nearly as may 
be, impossible: however, in degrees of wrongness there is no lim- 
it; nay, I can conceive a worse system than that of the Nameless 
itself ; as poisoned victual may be worse than absolute hunger, 

"It is written. When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall 
into the ditch ; wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not 
sometimes be safer, if both leader and led simply— sit still ? Had 
you, anywhere in Crim Tartary, walled-in a square enclosure; 
furnished it with a small, ill-chosen Library; and then turned 



132 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE, 

loose into it eleven hundred Christian striplings, to tumble about 
as they listed, from three to seven years: certain persons, under 
the title of Professors, being stationed at the gates, to declare 
aloud that it was a University, and exact considerable admission 
fees, — you had, not indeed in mechanical structure, yet in spirit 
and result, some imperfect resemblance of our High Seminary. I 
say, imperfect ; for if our mechanical structure was quite other, 
so neither was our result altogether the same: unhappily, we 
were not in Crim Tartary, but in a corrupt European city, full of 
smoke and sin; moreover, in the middle of a Public, which, with- 
out far costlier apparatus than that of the Square Enclosure, 
and Declaration aloud, you could not be sure of gulling. 

''Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are; and 
gulled, with the most surprising profit. Towards anything like 
a Statistics of Imposture, indeed, little as yet has been done: 
with a strange indifference, our Economists, nigh buried under 
Tables for minor Branches of Industry, have altogether over- 
looked the grand all-overtopping Hypocrisy Branch ; as if our 
whole arts of Puffery, of Quackery, Priestcraft, Kingcraft, and 
the innumerable other crafts and mysteries of that genus, had 
not ranked in Productive Industry at all ! Can any one, for ex- 
ample, so much as say, What moneys, in Literature and Shoe- 
blacking, are realized by actual Instruction and actual jet Polish; 
what by fictitious-persuasive Proclamation of such ; specifying, 
in distinct items, the distributions, circulations, disbursements, 
incomings of said moneys, with the smallest approach to accu- 
racy? But to ask. How far, in all the several infinitely-complected 
departments of social business, in government, education, in 
manual, commercial, intellectual fabrication of every sort, man's 
Want is supplied by true Ware; how far by the mere Appearance 
of true Ware;— in other words, To what extent, by what meth- 
ods, with what effects, in various times and countries, Deception 
takes the place of wages of Performance: here truly is an In- 
quiry big with results for the future time, but to which hitherto 
only the vaguest answer can be given. If for the present, in our 
Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to Appearance of Ware so 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 133 

high even as at One to a Hundred (which, considering the Wages 
of a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is prob- 
ably not far from the mark) — what almost prodigious saving 
may there not be anticipated, as the Statistics of Imposture ad- 
vances, and so the manufacturing of Shams (that of Realities 
rising into clearer and clearer distinction therefrom) gradually 
declines, and at length becomes all but wholly unnecessary ! 

'< This for the coming golden ages. What I had to remark, 
for the present brazen one, is, that in several provinces, as in 
Education, Polity, Religion, where so much is wanted and indis- 
pensable, and so little can as yet be furnished, probably Impos- 
ture is of sanative, anodyne nature, and man's Gullibility not his 
worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of war quite broken ; I mean 
your military chest insolvent, forage all but exhausted ; and that 
the whole army is about to mutiny, disband, and cut your and 
each other's throat,— then were it not well could you, as if by 
miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them on coagu- 
lated water, or mere imagination of meat; whereby, till the real 
supply came up, they might be kept together and quiet? Such 
perhaps was the aim of Nature, who does nothing without aim, 
in furnishing her favorite, Man, with this .his so omnipotent or 
rather omnipatient Talent of being Gulled. 

"How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism ; nay, al- 
most makes mechanism for itself ! These Professors in the Name- 
less lived with ease, with safety, by a mere Reputation, con- 
structed in past times, and then too with no great effort, by quite 
another class of persons. Which Reputation , like a strong, brisk- 
going undershot wheel, sunk into the general current, bade fair, 
with only a little annual repainting on their part, to hold long 
together, and of its own accord assiduously grind for them. 
Happy that it was so, for the Millers! They themselves needed 
not to work ; their attempts at working, at what they called 
Educating, now when I look back on it, fill me with a certain 
mute admiration. 

" Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a Rational University; 
in the highest degree hostile to Mysticism; thus was the young 



134 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

vacant mind furnished with much talk about Progress of the Spe- 
cies, Dark Ages, Prejudice, and the like ; so that all were quickly 
enough blown out into a state of windy argumentativeness; 
whereby the better sort had soon to end in sick, impotent Skep- 
ticism; the worser sort explode (crepiren) in finished Self-conceit, 
and to all spiritual intents become dead. — But this too is portion 
of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of Unbelief, why murmur 
under it; is there not a better coming, nay come? As in long- 
drawn systole and long-drawn diastole, must the period of Faith 
alternate with the period of Denial; must the vernal growth, the 
summer luxuriance of all Opinions, Spiritual Representations 
and Creations, be followed by, and again follow, the autumnal 
decay, the winter dissolution. For man lives in Time, has his 
whole earthly being, endeavor and destiny shaped for him by 
Time : only in the transitory Time-Symbol is the ever motionless 
Eternity we stand on made manifest. And yet, in such winter- 
seasons of Denial, it is for the nobler-minded perhaps a compara- 
tive misery to have been born, and to be awake and work; and 
for the duller a felicity, if, like hibernating animals, safe-lodged in 
some Salamanta University, or Sybaris City or other supersti- 
tious or voluptuous Castle of Ind olence, they can slumber-through, 
in stupid dreams, and only awaken when the loud-roaring hail- 
storms have all done their work, and to our prayers and martyr- 
doms the new Spring has been vouchsafed." 

That in the environment, here mysteriously enough shadowed 
forth, Teufelsdrockh must have felt ill at ease, cannot be doubt- 
ful. " The hungry young," he says, "looked up to their spiritual 
Nurses ; and, for food, were bidden eat the eastwind. What vain 
jargon of controversial Metaphysic, Etymology, and mechanical 
Manipulation falsely named Science, was current there, I indeed 
learned, better perhaps than the most. Among eleven-hundred 
Christian youths, there will not be wanting some eleven eager to 
learn. By collision with such, a certain warmth, a certain polish 
was communicated; by instinct and happy accident, I took less 
to rioting [renomwiren) , than to thinking and reading, which 
latter also I was free to do. Nay from the chaos of that Library, 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 135 

I succeeded in fishing-up more books perhaps than had been 
known to the very keepers thereof. The foundation of a Literary 
Life was hereby laid: I learned, on my own strength, to read 
fluently in almost all cultivated languages, on almost all subjects 
and sciences; farther, as man is ever the prime object to man, 
already it was my favorite employment to read character in 
speculation, and from the Writing to construe the Writer. A 
certain ground-plan of Human Nature and Life began to fashion 
itself in me; wondrous enough, now when I look back on it; for 
ray whole Universe, physical and spiritual, was as yet a Machine! 
However, such a conscious, recognized ground-plan, the truest I 
had, was beginning to be there, and by additional experiments 
might be corrected and indefinitely extended." 

Thus from poverty does the strong educe nobler wealth ; thus 
in the destitution of the wild desert does our young Ishmael ac- 
quire for himself the highest of all possessions, that of Self-help. 
Nevertheless a desert this was, waste, and howling with savage 
monsters. Teufelsdrockh gives us long details of his ''fever- 
paroxysms of Doubt;" his Inquiries concerning Miracles, and the 
Evidences of religious Faith; and how "in the silent night- 
watches, still darker in his heart than over sky and earth, he has 
cast himself before the Allseeing, and with audible prayers cried 
vehemently for Light, for deliverance from Death and the Grave. 
Not till after long years, and unspeakable agonies, did the be- 
lieving heart surrender; sink into spell-bound sleep, under the 
nightmare. Unbelief; and, in this hag-ridden dream, mistake 
God's fair living world for a pallid, vacant Hades and extinct 
Pandemonium. But through such Purgatory pain," continues 
he, "it is appointed us to pass; first must the dead Letter of 
Religion own itself dead, and drop piecemeal into dust, if tlie liv- 
ing Spirit of Religion, freed from this its charnel-house, is to arise 
on us, newborn of Heaven, and with new healing under its wings." 

To which Purgatory pains, seemingly severe enough, if we add 
a liberal measure of Earthly distresses, want of practical guid- 
ance, want of s^mipathy, want of money, want of hope; and all 
this in the fervid season of youth, so exaggerated in imagining, 



136 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

so boundless in desires, yet here so poor in means, — do we not 
see a strong incipient spirit oppressed and overloaded from with- 
out and from within ; the fire of genius struggling up among fuel- 
wood of the greenest, and as yet with more of bitter vapor than 
of clear flame? 

From various fragments of Letters and other documentary 
scraps, it is to be inferred that Teufelsdrockh, isolated, shy, re- 
tiring as he was, had not altogether escaped notice : certain es- 
tablished men are aware of his existence; and, if stretching out 
no helpful hand, have at least their eyes on him. He appears, 
though in dreary enough humor, to be addressing himself to the 
Profession of Law; — whereof, indeed, the world has since seen 
him a public graduate. But omitting these broken, unsatisfac- 
tory thrums of Economical relation, let us present rather the fol- 
lowing small thread of Moral relation ; and therewith, the reader 
for himself weaving it in at the right place, conclude our dim ar- 
ras-picture of these University years. 

<' Here also it was that I formed acquaintance with Herr Tow- 
good, or, as it is perhaps better written, Herr Toughgut; a 
young person of quality [von Adel),ivom. the interior j^arts of 
England. He stood connected by blood and hospitality, with 
the Counts von Zahdarm, in this quarter of Germany; to which 
noble Family I likewise was, by his means, with all friendliness, 
brought near. Towgood had a fair talent, unspeakably ill-culti- 
vated; with considerable humor of character; and, bating his to- 
tal ignorance, for he knew nothing except Boxing and a little 
Grammar, showed less of that aristocratic impassivity, and si- 
lent fury, than for most part belongs to Travelers of his nation. 
To him I owe my first practical knowledge of the English and 
their ways; perhaps also something of the partiality with which 
I have ever since regarded that singular people. Towgood was 
not without an eye, could he have come at any light. Invited 
doubtless by the presence of the Zahdarm Family, he had trav- 
eled hither, in the almost frantic hope of perfecting his studies ; 
he, whose studies had as yet been those of infancy, hither to a 
University where so much as the notion of perfection, not to say 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 137 

the effort after it, no longer existed ! Often we would condole 
over the hard destiny of the Young in this era : how, after all our 
toil, we were to be turned out into the world, Avith beards 
on our chin, indeed, but with few other attributes of man- 
hood; no existing thing that we were trained to Act on, 
nothing that we could so much as Believe. 'How has our head 
on the outside a polished Hat,' would Towgood exclaim, 'and in 
the inside Vacancy, or a froth of Vocables and Attorney-Logic! 
At a small cost men are educated to make leather into-shoes; 
but at a great cost, what ami educated to make? By Heaven, 
Brother! what I have already eaten and worn, aslcame thus 
far, would endow a considerable Hospital of Incurables.'— 'Man, 
indeed,' I would answer, ' has a Digestive Faculty, which must be 
kept working, were it even partly by stealth. But as for our 
Mis-education, make not bad worse; waste not the time yet ours, 
in trampling on thistles because they have yielded us no figs, Frisch 
zu, Bruder I Here are Books, and we have brains to read them ; 
here is a whole Earth and a whole Heaven, and we have eyes to 
look on them : Frisch zu P 

"Often also our talk was gay; not without brilliancy, and 
even fire. We looked out on Life, with its strange scaffolding, 
where all at once harlequins dance, and men are beheaded and 
quartered: motley, not unterrific was the aspect ; but we looked 
on it like brave youths. For myself, these were perhaps my most 
genial hours. Towards this young warm-hearted, strong-headed 
and wrong-headed Herr Towgood I was even near experiencing 
the now obsolete sentiment of Friendship. Yes, foolish Heathen 
that I was, I felt that, under certain conditions, I could have 
loved this man, and taken him to my bosom, and been his 
brother once and always. By degrees, however, I understood 
the new time, and its wants. If man's Soul is indeed, as in the 
Finnish Language, and Utilitarian Philosophy, a kind of Stom- 
ach, what else is the true meaning of Spiritual Union but an Eat- 
ing together? Thus we, instead of Friends, are Dinner-guests; 
and here as elsewhere have cast away chimeras." 

So ends, abruptly as is usual, and enigmatically, this little 



138 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

incipient romance. "What henceforth becomes of the brave TTerr 
T()wp;o()(], or Ton*^h^iit? He has divcul under in the Autobio- 
graphical ('haos, and swirris we Hoe not wliere. Does any reader 
''in tlie interior parts of iCngland " know of such a man? 

CHAItACTERIZATION. 

"Willi 1 lie ^111; of sotifi,', Carlylo would liav^o been tho groatoHt of epic 
poclH sin<'<! lloincr. VVillioiilnt to luodulato and liarinoiiizc and bring 
j)arl,4 into ])rop<T i-cbition, Ik; is tlio most anior-plious of liunioriHtH, the 
most sliinin;^- avahir ok" whim the woi-ld lias ever Becm. B(>giiiiiing 
with a Ijcarty contempt for shamH, lie lias come at lenjj;t]i to holiovo in 
bruto force; as tin; only reality, and ha,H an little Bonsoof juHtico a.s Thack- 
i)Yi\y allowed to wonirn . We say ])nite force Ix'cause, though the theory 
is iJia,t this foice should be directed by the BUjJrenie intellect for the time 
being, yet aJl infeiioi- wits are treated i-a,th<'r as ohstacles to be contemp- 
tuously shoved aside; than as a.uxiliai-y for(;es to ])e conciliated threjugh 
their reason. I>u(, wilh all (le<luet ions, he remains the ]>rofoimdest critic 
and his was tin; most draniatie; iniagina,t,ion of mo(h'rn times. N<'ver was 
thei-e a, more sti'iking e.\a,iiipl(! of \]n} j/i^cn'iuni /H'rf('i\i(Jimi long ago 
said to he eharaclcrisi i<; of his eounlrymen. '^riioiigh he seems moie .and 
more; to confound material with moral su<;cess, yet tli(;re is always some- 
thing wholesome in his unswerving loyalty to reality, as he niid(;rstands 
it;. History, in the true sense, IkmIocs not and cannot write, for he looks 
on mankind as a Jierd without volition and without moral force; but 
such vivid i)i(;t,ur(;s of events, such living con(tej)tions of (character, we find 
nowli(M-e elsein j)rose. Though not the safest of guides in ])olitics or j)rac- 
tical philosophy, his vjdue as an inspirer and awakener cannot be over- 
estimated."— AVom J. Rihsscll Lou'oIFn "My Study Windows." 

"The time has not yet/ come for the passing of a iiiial Judgnnnit on 
Carlyle's position in liritish literature. lie was above all things a 
pro])het, in the guis(; of a, man of letters, wlio predicted the reverse of 
smooth things for liis count i"y and for tin; woi'ld ; and it has yet to Ix; 
B<'en if his |)re(licl. ions will befullilled. I>utitmay be said even now, and 
without, I'isk of cont lacrHttion, that, for good or evil, he exerted a greater 
inlluenc(> on llritish literature during the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and through that litcrat ur-e, on t,lie ethical, religious, and political 
beliefs of his time, than any of his contcmi)oraries ; that, aw a humorist, 
nsing humour seriously and as a wea])on foi* the enforcement of his 
opinions, Ik; has no sujx'rior, combining in himself what is best in Dun- 
bar, l>urns, Rai)(!lais, and Swift; iliati, as a, mastei- of tlie graphic in 
style he has no i-ival and no second — showing an ecpial facility in jilioto- 
graphing nature and in graBj)ing and presenting in api)ropriate phrase- 
ology the salient j)oints of i>ersonal charactcT as exhibited in expression, 
habits, features, build and dress," — W, WuUncu. 



DONALD G. MITCHELL. 

(Ik Marvel.) 
1822 . 



The author of the followiiij;- soloction, Donaij) (}. Mitchell, or as h(> 
is better known, "Ik Marv(>l," was horn April 12, 1822, in Norwieh, 
Conn. After graduation at Yale, his healtli bcinj^- delicate, he H{)(>nt some 
years on his grandfather's farm, where an early and lasting love of na- 
ture devc'loped and grew into an intense interest in agricultural matters 
that has influenced his whole life and is strikingly exemi)lified in many of 
his works, lie traveled in Euroi)e in 1844-45, corresponding with an Al- 
bany journal. These letters were moulded into book-form and |)ub- 
lished in 1847. On his return from Euroi)e he entered upon the study of 
law, which he was soon obliged to abandon, as its duties proved too con- 
fining. He visited Europe again, passing the winter of 1848 in I'aris. 
In 1850 he published his most i)0])ular volume, " The Reveries of a Bach- 
elor," which was followed by " Day Dreams" in 1851, both written in 
the same peculiar tone. His reputation as a literary author rests on 
these two books. In 185.'J he was ai)point(Ml American consul at Venice, 
where he resided for two years. Ileturning to America in 1855, he pur- 
chased an estate near New Haven in liis native State, where he has since 
lived, dividing his time between literary pursuits and the care of this es- 
tate. Here he })ublish(;d through the press several books, among which 
are two most ])leasing ones, " My Farm of Edgewood " and " Wet Days 
at Edgewood." For several years he was the editor of "Our Hearth and 
Home," a weekly periodical devoted to home and farm i)ursuits, whieli 
was discontinued some time since. He is a genial, loving man, hale and 
hearty in his declining years. 

School Dreams. 

(From "Dream-Life," by Ik Marvel.) 

It is a proud thing to go out from under the realm of a 

schoolmistress, and to be enrolled in a company of boys who are 

under the guidance of a master. It is one of the earliest steps of 

worldly pride, which has before it a long and tedious ladder of 

(139) 



140 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ascent. Even the advice of the ohl mistress, and the nine-penny 
book that she thrusts into your hand as a parting gift, pass for 
nothing; and her kiss of adieu, if she tenders it in the sight of 
your fellows, will call up an angry rush of blood to the cheek, 
that for long years, shall drown all sense of its kindness. 

You have looked admiringly many a day upon the tall fellows 
who play at the door of Dr. Bidlow's school: you have looked 
with reverence, second only to that felt for the old village church, 
upon its dark-looking, heavy brick walls. It seemed to be redo- 
lent of learning; and stopping at times, to gaze upon the galli- 
pots and broken retorts, at the second-story window, you have 
pondered, in your boyish way, upon the inscrutable won- 
ders of Science, and the ineffable dignity of Dr. Bidlow's brick 
school ! 

Dr. Bidlow seems to you to belong to a race of giants; and 
yet he is a spare, thin man, with a hooked nose, a large, flat, 
gold watch-key, a crack in his voice, a wig, and very dirty wrist- 
bands. Still you stand in awe at the mere sight of him; — an 
awe that is very much encouraged by a report made to you by a 
small boy, — that "Old Bid" keeps a large ebony ruler in his 
desk. You are amazed at the small boy's audacity: it aston- 
ishes you that anyone who had ever smelt the strong fumes of 
sulphur and ether in the Doctor's room, and had seen him turn 
red vinegar blue (as they say he does), should call him "Old 
Bid!" 

You, however, come very little under his control: you enter 
upon the proud life, in the small boy's department, — under the 
dominion of the English master. He is a different personage from 
Dr. Bidlow : he is a dapper, little man who twinkles his eye in 
a peculiar fashion, and who has a way of marching about 
the schoolroom with his hands crossed behind him, giving a 
playful flirt to his coat-tails. He wears a pen tucked behind his 
ear: his hair is carefully set up at the sides, and upon the top, 
to conceal (as you think later in life) his diminutive height; 
and he steps very springily around behind the benches, glancing 
now and then at the books, — cautioning one scholar about his 



DONALD G. MITCHELL. 141 

dog's-ears, and startling another from a doze, by a very loud 
and odious snap of his forefinger upon the boy's head. 

At other times, he sticks a hand in the armlet of his waistcoat: 
he brandishes in the other a thiekish bit of smooth cherry-wood, 
—sometimes dressing his hair withal ; and again giving his head or 
slight scratch behind the ear, while he takes occasion at the same 
time, for an oblique glance at a fat boy in the corner, who is 
reaching down from his seat after a little paper pellet, that has 
just been discharged at him from some unknown quarter. The 
master steals very cautiously and quickly to the rear of the 
stooping boy,— dreadfully exposed byhisunfortunateposition,— 
and inflicts a stinging blow. A weak-eyed little scholar on the 
next bench ventures a modest titter; at which the assistant makes 
a significant motion with his ruler— on the seat, as it were, of an 
imaginary pair of pantaloons,— which renders the weak-eyed boy 
on a sudden, very insensible to the recent Joke. 

You, meantime, profess to be very much engrossed with your 
grammar— turned up-side down ; you think it must have hurt; 
and are only sorry that it did not happen to a tall, dark-faced boy 
who cheated you in a swap of jackknives. You innocently think 
that he must be a very bad boy; and fancy— aided by a sugges- 
tion of the old nurse at home, on the same point,— that he will 
one day come to the gallows. 

There is a platform on one side of the schoolroom, where the 
teacher sits at a little red table, and they have a tradition 
among the boys, that a pin properly bent, was one day put into 
the chair of the English master, and that he did not wear his 
hand in the armlet of his waistcoat for two whole days there- 
after. Yet his air of dignity seems proper enough in a man of 
such erudition, and such grasp of imagination, as he must 
possess. For he can quote poetry,— some of the big scholars 
Jiave heard him do it :— he can parse the whole of Paradise Lost; 
and he can cipher in Long Division, and the Rule of Three, as if 
it was all Simple Addition; and then— such a hand as he writes, 
and such a superb capital B ! It is hard to understand how he 
does it. 



142 THE TEACHER IK LITERATURE. 

Sometimes, lifting the lid of^ourdesk, where you pretend to 
be very busy with your papers, you steal the reading of some 
brief passage of Lazy Lawrence, or of the Hungarian Brothers, 
and muse about it for hours afterward, to the great detriment of 
your ciphering; or, deeply lost in the story of the Scottish Chiefs, 
you fall to comparing such villains as Monteith with the stout 
boys who tease you ; and you only wish they could come within 
reach of the fierce Kirkpatrick's claymore. 

But you are frightened out of this stolen reading by a circum- 
stance that stirs your young blood very strangely. The master 
is looking very sourly on a certain morning, and has caught 
sight of the little weak-eyed boy over beyond you, reading Rod- 
erick Random. He sends out for a long birch rod, and having 
trimmed off the leaves carefully,— with a glance or two in your 
direction,— he marches up behind the bench of the poor culprit, — 
who turns deathly pale,— grapples him by the collar, drags him 
out over the desks, his limbs dangling in a shocking way against 
the sharp angles, and having him fairly in the middle of the room, 
clinches his rod with a new, and, as it seems to you, a very 
sportive grip. 

You shudder fearfully. 

" Please don't whip me," says the boy, whimpering. "Aha ! " 
says the smirking pedagogue, bringing down the stick with a 
quick, sharp cut,— ''you don't like it, eh?" 

The poor fellow screams, and struggles to escape; but the blows 
come faster and thicker. The blood tingles in your finger ends 
with indignation. 

"Please don't strike me again," says the boy, sobbing and 
taking breath, as he writhes about the legs of the master;— "I 
won't read another time." 

'' Ah, you won't sir — won't you? I don't mean you shall, sir," 
and the blows fall thick and fast, — until the poor fellow crawls 
back, utterly crest-fallen and heart-sick, to sob over his books. 

You grow into a sudden boldness : you wish you were only 
large enough to beat the master: you know such treatment 
would make you miserable : you shudder at the thought of it : 



DONALD G. MITCHELL. 143 

you do not believe he would dare: you know the other boy has 
got no father. This seems to throw a, new liglit upon the matter, 
but it only intensifies your indignation. You are sure that no 
father would suffer it; or if you thouglit so, it would sadly 
weaken your love for him. You pray Heaven that it may never 
be brought to such proof. 

Let a boy once distrust the love or the tenderness of his 

parents, and the last resort of his yearning affections — so far as 
the world goes — is utterly gone. He is in the sure road to a bit- 
ter fate. His heart will take on a hard iron covering, that will 
flash out plenty of fire in his after contact with the world, but it 
will never — never melt ! 

There are some tall trees that overshadow an angle of the 
schoolhouse; and the larger scholars play some very surprising 
gymnastic tricks upon their lower limbs: one boy, for instance, 
will hang for an incredible length of time by his feet, with his 
head down; and when you tell Charlie of it at night, with such 
additions as your boyish imagination can contrive, the old nurse 
is shocked, and states very gravely that it is dangerous ; and 
that the blood all runs to the head, and sometimes bursts out of 
the eyes and mouth. You look at tliat particular boy with as- 
tonishment afterward; and expect to see him some day burst 
into bleeding from the nose and ears, and flood the schoolroom 
benches. 

In time, however, you get to performing some modest experi- 
ments yourself upon the very lowest limbs,— taking care to avoid 
the observation of the larger boys, who else might laugh at you : 
you especially avoid the notice of one stout fellow in pea-green 
breeches, who is a sort of "bully" among the small boys, and 
who delights in kicking your marbles about, very accidentally. 
He has a fashion, too, of twisting his handkerchief into what 
he calls a ''snapper," with a knot at the end, and cracking at 
you with it, very much to the irritation of your spirits, and of 
your legs. 

Sometimes, when he has brought you to an angry burst of 
tears, he will very graciously force upon you the handkerchief, 



144 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

and insist upon your cracking him in return ; which, as you know 
nothing about his effective method of making the knot bite, is a 
very harmless proposal on his part. 

But you have still stronger reason to remember that boy. 
There are trees, as I said, near the school ; and you get the repu- 
tation after a time of a good climber. One day you are well in 
the tops of the trees, and, being dared by the boys below, you 
venture higher — higher than any boy has ever gone before. You 
feel very proud ; but just then catch sight of the sneering face 
of your old enemy of the snapper; and he dares you to go upon 
a limb that he points out. 

The rest say — for you hear them plainly— " it won't bear him." 
And Frank, a great friend of yours, shouts loudly to you — not 
to try. 

" Pho," says your tormentor—" the little coward ! " 

If you could whip him, you would go down the tree and do it 
willingly : as it is, you cannot let him triumph : so you advance 
cautiously out upon the limb: it bends and sways fearfully with 
your weight : presently it cracks : you try to return, but it is too 
late: you feel yourself going:— your mind flashes home — over 
your life— your hope— your fate, like lightning: then comes a 
sense of dizziness, — a succession of quick blows, and a dull, heavy 
crash ! 

You are conscious of nothing again, until you find yourself in 
the great hall of the school, covered with blood, the old Doctor 
standing over you with a phial, and Frank kneeling by you, and 
holding your shattered arm, which has been broken by the fall. 

After this, come those long weary days of confinement, when 
you lie still, through all the hours of noon, looking out upon the 
cheerful sunshine, only through the windows of your little room. 
Yet it seems a grand thing to have the whole household attend- 
ant upon you. The doors are opened and shut softly, and they 
all step noiselessly about your chamber; and when you groan 
with pain, you are sure of meeting sad, sympathizing looks. 
Your mother will step gently to your side and lay her cool, white 
hand upon your forehead ; and little Nelly will gaze at you from 



DONALD G. MITCHELL. 145 

the foot of your bed with a sad earnestness, and with tears of 
pity in her soft hazel eyes. And afterward, as your pain passes 
away, she will bring you her prettiest books, and fresh flowers, 
and whatever she knows you will love. 

But it is dreadful when you wake at night from your feverish 
slumber, and see nothing but the spectral shadows that the sick 
lamp upon the hearth throws aslant the walls ; and hear nothing 
but the heavy breathing of the old nurse in the easy-chair, and 
the ticking of the clock upon the mantel ! Then silence and the 
night crowd upon your soul drearily. Butyourthought is active. 
It shapes at your bedside the loved figure of your mother, or it 
calls up the whole company of Dr. Bidlow's boys; and weeks of 
study or of play, group like magic on your quickened vision :— 
then a twinge of pain will call again the dreariness, and your 
head tosses upon the pillow, and your eye searches' the gloom 
vainly for pleasant faces ; and your fears brood on that drearier, 
coming night of death— far longer, and far more cheerless than 
this. 

But even here, the memory of some little prayer you have been 
taught, which promises a Morning after the Night, comes to your 
throbbing brain; and its murmur on your fevered lips, as you 
breathe it, soothes like a caress of angels, and woos you to 
smiles and sleep. 

As the days pass, you grow stronger ; and Frank comes in to 
tell you of the school, and that your old tormenter has been 
expelled : and you grow into a strong friendship with Frank, and 
you think of yourselves as a new Damon and Pythias — and that 
you will some day live together in a fine house, with plenty of 
horses, and plenty of chestnut trees. Alas, the boy counts little 
on those later and bitter fates of life, which sever his early friend- 
ships, like wisps of straw ! 

At other times, with your e^'e upon the sleek, trim figure of the 
Doctor, and upon his huge bunch of watch seals, you think you 
will some day be a Doctor ; and that with a wife and children, 
and a respectable gig, and gold watch, with seals to match, you 
would needs be a very happy fellow. 

2 T. L.— 10 



146 THE TEACHER IN LITERATUkE. 

And with such fancies drifting on your thought, you count for 
the hundredth time the figures upon the curtains of your bed, — 
you trace out the flower wreaths upon the paper-hangings of 
your room; — your eyes rest idly on the cat playing with the 
fringe of the curtain: — you see your mother sitting with her 
needlework beside the fire; — you watch the sunbeams as they 
drift along the carpet, from morning until noon; and from noon 
till night, you watch them playing on the leaves, and dropping 
spangles on the lawn; and as you watch — you dream. 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

The author in his preface to the edition of 1883 gives the following 
reasons for writing "Dream Life," from which the above extract has 
been taken by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers: 

"'Dream Life' grew out of the 'Reveries' even as one bubble piles 
upon another from the pipe out of which young breath blows them into 
bigness: and it was largely because the first floated so well and so wide- 
ly, that life and consequence was given to this companion book. 

"I am half ashamed, at this late day, to give so poor excuse for the 
writing of 'Dream Life:' any and every book should have a better rea- 
son for being wrought, than its good chance of catching a popular tide, 
and floating upon it to success. There is always danger of strain 
in work so undertaken and of weak duplication, and vague echoes of fore- 
gone things. * ***** 

"It was to a quaint old farmhouse shadowed by elms, in a very quiet 
country (whose main features peej) out from the opening chapters of 
Spring, Summer and Autumn in this volume), that I went to finish my 
summer task — the book being promised for early winter. There was 
•scant but bracing farmer's fare for me; and a world of encouragement in 
the play of sun and shadow over the tranquil valley landscape, and in 
the murmur of the brooks that I had known of old. 

" In six weeks I had completed my task, and going to the publishers 
(then established in the old Brick Church Chapel— where noAV stands the 
Times building in New York), I threw my bundle of MS. upon the coun- 
ter, saying, ' What will you give me for the lot?' 

"Mr. Scribner took up the budget, smilingly, and said: 'I wouldn't 
advise you to part with the copyright; but if you must have an offer I 
will give you 14,000.' There was cheer in this ; yet I wisely took his ad- 
vice—which the result amply justified." * » * 



GEORGE CRABBE. 

PHYSICIAN, PRIEST AND POET. 
1754-1832. 

The Rev. George Crabbe, of humble origin, wasbornatAldborongh, 
in Suffolk, England, Christmas Eve, 1754. His father, collector of salt 
duties, was poor, but exerted himself to give his son a superior education, 
the reward of which he reaped in his declining days in witnessing the 
celebrity of his son, won by his first famous poem, "The Library." 
Crabbe was apprenticed to a surgeon in his native place, but, as is com- 
mon, his prospects as practitioner were so little encouraged, he aban- 
doned his profession and went up to London as a literary adventurer. 
His ex[)erience in seeking recognition as an author were extremely de- 
pressing and not unlike many of England's noted authors. When his 
affairs were desperate, he sought tlie favor of Edmund Burke, who 
received him into his own house, where he met many of England's dis- 
tinguished men, authors and painters. Shortly after publishing his 
poem, "The Library," he took sacred orders and returned to his native 
home as curate to therector. In 1783, his poem, '* The Village," was pub- 
lished, which Dr. Johnson and Burke had seen and corrected. This won 
him immediate reputation. Through the influence of Burke he had been 
chaplain to the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir castle, from which he now 
moved to the curacy of two small livings in the gift of Lord Thurlow. 
Marrying at this time, he lived four happy years in the parsonage of 
Stathen, near Belvoir, at the end of which time he exchanged his living 
for two more desirable livings in the vale of Belvoir. In 1807 he pub- 
lished his "Parish Register," winning added success. In 1810 "The 
Borough," from which this selection is made, came out, followed two 
years later by "Tales in Terse." "The public voice," says his biogra- 
pher, " was again highly favorable." Financial favor smiled upon the 
poet, and from his humble livings he was transferred to the living of 
Trowbridge, Wiltshire, by the Duke of Rutland. His income was £800 
a year now. He continued his literary life and labors, issuing his later 
works from time to time, when, in 1819, having become very popular 
with the public, his publisher paid him £3,000, an extraordinary sum,f(jr 
the copyright of his poems. He was a man of simple manners and 
habits. His later years were spent in the performance of his clerical 
duties. He died at Trowbridge, February 3, 1832. 

(147) 



148 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Borough Schools. 

(From "The Borough," by George Crabbe.) 

To every class we have a School assigned 
Rules for all ranks and food for every mind : 
Yet one there is, that small regard to rule 
Or study pays, and still is deem'd a School; 
That where a deaf, poor, patient widow sits. 
And awes some thirty infants as she knits ; 
Infants of humble, busy wives, who pay 
Some trifling price for freedom through the day. 
At this good matron's hut the children meet, 
Who thus becomes the mother of the street : 
Her room is small, they cannot widely stray,— 
Her threshold high, they cannot run away : 
Though deaf, she sees the rebel-heroes shout,— 
Though lame, her white rod nimbly walks about ; 
With band of yarn she keeps offenders in, 
And to her gown the sturdiest rogue can pin ; 
Aided by these, and spells, and tell-tale birds. 
Her power they dread and reverence her words. 
To Learning's second seats we now proceed, 
Where humming students gilded primers read; 
Or books with letters large and pictures gay. 
To make their reading but a kind of play — 
" Reading made Easy," so the titles tell : 
But they who read must first begin to spell : 
There may be profit in these arts, but still, 
Learning is labor, call it what you will ; 
Upon the youthful mind a heavy load, 
Nor must we hope to find the ro^^al road. 
Some will their easy steps to science show, 
And some to heav'n itself their by-way know ; 
Ah ! trust them not, — who fame or bliss would share, 
Must learn by labor, and must live by care. 



GEORGE CRABBE. 149 

Another matron of superior kind, 
For liigher schools prepares the rising mind; 
Preparatory she her Learning calls, 
The step first made to colleges and halls. 

She early sees to what the mind will grow, 
Nor abler judge of infant-powers I know; 
She sees what soon the lively will impede, 
And how the steadier will in turn succeed ; 
Observes the dawn of wisdom, fancy, taste. 
And knows what parts will wear, and what will waste. 
She marks the mind .too lively, and at once 
Sees the gay coxcomb and the rattling dunce. 

Long has she lived, and much she loves to trace 
Her former pupils, now a lordly race; 
Whom when she sees rich robes and furs bedeck. 
She marks the pride which once she strove to check. 
A Burgess comes, and she remembers well 
How hard her task to make his worship spell ; 
Cold, selfish, dull, inanimate, unkind, 
'Twas but by anger he displayed a mind : 
Now civil, smiling, complaisant, and gay, 
The world has worn th' unsocial crust away : 
That sullen spirit now a softness wears, 
And, save by fits, e'en dullness disappears: 
But still the matron can the man behold. 
Dull, selfish, hard, inanimate, and cold. 
A merchant passes, — " Probity and truth, 
Prudence and patience, mark'd thee from thy youth." 
Thus she observes, but oft retains her fears 
For him, who now with name unstain'd appears; 
Nor hope relinquishes, for one who yet 
Is lost in error and involved in debt; 
For latent evil in that heart she found. 
More open here, but here the core was sound. 

Various our Day-Schools; here behold we one 
Empty and still :— the morning duties done. 



150 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Soil'd, tatter'd, worn, and thrown in various heaps, 

Appear their books, and their confusion sleeps; 

The workmen all are from the Babel fled, 

And lost their tools, till the return they dread ; 

Meantime the master, with his wig awry, 

Prepares his books for business by-and-by ; 

Now all th' insignia of the monarch laid 

Beside him rest, and none stand by afraid; 

He, while his troop light-hearted leap and play, 

Is all intent on duties of the day ; 

No more the tyrant stern or judge severe, 

He feels the father's and the husband's fear. 

Ah ! little think the timid trembling crowd, 
That one so wise, so powerful, and so proud, 
Should feel himself, and dread the humble ills 
Of rent-day charges and of coalman's bills; 
That while they mercy from their judge implore, 
He fears himself— a knocking at the door; 
And feels the burthen as his neighbor states 
His humble portion to the parish-rates. 

They sit th' allotted hours, then eager run, 
Rushing to pleasure when the duty's done; 
His hour of leisure is of different kind, 
Then cares domestic rush upon his mind, 
And half the ease and comfort he enjoys. 
Is when surrounded by slates, books and boys. 

Poor Reuben Dixon has the noisiest school 
Of ragged lads, who ever bow'd to rule; 
Low in his price — the men who heave our coals. 
And clean our causeways, send him boys in shoals. 
To see poor Reuben, with his fry beside,— 
Their half-check'd rudeness and his half-scorn'd pride,- 
Their room, the sty in which th' assembly meet, 
In the close lane behind the Northgate-street ; 
T' observe his vain attempts to keep the peace. 
Till tolls the bell, and strife and troubles cease, — 



GEORGE CRABBE. 151 

Calls for our praise; his labor praise deserves, 

But not our pity; Reuben has no nerves: 

'Mid noise and dirt, and stench, and play, and prate, 

He calmly cuts the pen or views the slate. 

But Leonard; — yes, for Leonard's fate I grieve, 

Who loathes the station which he dares not leave; 

He cannot dig, he will not beg his bread, 

All his dependence rests upon his head ; 

And deeply skill'd in sciences and arts. 

On vulgar lads he wastes superior parts. 

Alas! what grief that feeling mind sustains, 
In guiding hands and stirring torpid brains; 
He whose proud mind from pole to pole will move, 
And view the wonders of the worlds above; 
Who thinks and reasons strongly: — hard his fate. 
Confined forever to the pen and slate : 
True he submits, and when the long dull day 
Has slowly pass'd, in weary tasks away 
To other worlds with cheerful view he looks. 
And parts the night between repose and books. 
Amid his labors, he has sometimes tried 
To turn a little from his cares aside; 
Pope, Milton, Dryden, with delight has seized, 
His soul engaged and of his trouble eased : 
When, with a heavy eye and ill-done sum. 
No part conceived, a stupid boy will come; 
Then Leonard first subdues the rising irown, 
And bids the blockhead la^^his blunders down: 
O'ei' which disgusted he will turn his eye, 
To his sad duty his sound mind apply. 
And, vex'd in spirit, throw his pleasures by. 

Turn we to Schools which more than these afford, 
The sound instruction and the wholesome board; 
And first our School for Ladies:— pity calls 
For one soft sigh, when we behold these walls. 



152 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Placed near the town, and where, from window high, 
The fair, confined, may our free crowds espy, 
With many a stranger gazing up and down. 
And all the envied tumult of the town ; 
May, in the smiling summer-eve, when they 
Are sent to sleep the pleasant hours away, 
Behold the poor (whom they conceive the bless'd) 
Employ'd for hours, and grieved they cannot rest. 
Here the fond girl, whose days are sad and few, 
Since dear mamma pronounced the last adieu, 
Looks to the road and fondly thinks she hears 
The carriage-wheels, and struggles with her tears : 
All yet is new, the misses great and small. 
Madam herself, and teachers, odious all ; 
From laughter, pity, nay command, she turns, 
But melts in softness, or with anger burns; 
Nauseates her food, and wonders who can sleep 
On such mean beds, where she can only weep : 
She scorns condolence — but to all she hates, 
Slowly at length her mind accommodates; 
Then looks on bondage with the same concern 
As others felt, and finds that she must learn 
As others learn'd — the common lot to share, 
To search for comfort and submit to care. 



Years pass away — let us suppose them past, 
Th' accomplished nymph for freedom looks at last; 
All hardships over, which a school contains, 
Th' spirits bondage and the body's pains; 
Where teachers make the heartless, trembling set 
Of pupils suffer for their own regret; 
Where winter's cold, attack'd by one poor fire. 
Chills the fair child, commanded to retire; 
She felt it keenly in the morning air, 
Keenly she felt it at the evening prayer. 



GEORGE CRAB BE. 153 

More pleasant summer; but then walks were made, 

Not a sweet ramble, but a slow parade; 

They moved by pairs beside the hawthorn-hedge, 

Only to set their feelings on an edge; 

And now at eve, when all their spirits rise, 

Are sent to rest, and all their pleasure dies ; 

Where yet they all the town alert can see, 

And distant plough-boys pacing o'er the lea. 

These and the tasks successive masters brought — 
The French they conn'd,the curious works they wrought, 
The hours they made their taper fingers strike 
Note after note, all dull to them alike; 
Their drawings, dancings on appointed days, 
Playing with globes, and getting parts of plays; 
The tender friendships made 'twixt heart and heart, 
When the dear friends had nothing to impart; — 
All ! all ! are over; — now th' accomplish'd maid 
Longs for the world, of nothing there afraid : 
Dreams of delight invade her gentle breast, 
And fancied lovers rob the heart of rest; 
At the paternal door a carriage stands. 
Love knits their hearts and Hymen joins their hands. 

Ah ! — world unknown ! how charming is thy view, 
Thy pleasures many, and each pleasure new: 
Ah ! — world experienced ! what of thee is told? 
How few thy pleasures, and those few how old ! 

Within a silent street, and far apart 
From noise of business, from a quay or mart. 
Stands an old spacious building, and the din 
You hear without, explains the work within; 
Unlike the whispering of the nymphs, this noise 
Loudly proclaims a " Boarding-School for Boys; " 
The master heeds it not, for thirty years 
Have render'd all familiar to his ears ; 
He sits in comfort, 'mid the various sound 
Of mingled tones forever flowing round j 



154 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Day after day he to his task attends,— 
Unvaried toil, and care that never ends,— 
Boys in their work proceed ; while his employ 
Admits no change, or changes but the boy ; 
Yet time has made it easy ; — he beside 
Has power supreme, and power is sweet to pride. 
But grant him pleasure ;— what can teachers feel 
Dependent helpers always at the wheel ? 
Their power despised, their compensation small, 
Their labor dull, their life laborious all : 
Set after set the lower lads to make 
Fit for the class which their superiors take; 
The road of learning for a time to track 
In roughest state, and then again go back : 
Just the same way on other troops to wait, — 
Attendants fix'd at learning's lower gate. 

The Day-tasks now are over, — to their ground 
Rush the gay crowd with joy-compelling sound ; 
Glad to elude the burthens of the day. 
The eager parties hurry to their play : 
Then in these hours of liberty we find 
The native bias of an opening mind ; 
They yet possess not skill the mask to place. 
And hide the passions glowing in the face ; 
Yet some are found — the close, the sly, the mean, 
Who know already all must not bo seen. 

Lo ! one who walks apart, although so young, 
He lays restraint upon his eye and tongue ; 
Nor will he into scrapes or danger get. 
And half the school are in the stripling's debt : 
Suspicious, timid, he is much afraid 
Of trick and plot;— he dreads to be betrayM ; 
He shuns all friendship, for he finds they lend. 
When lads begin to call each other friend ; 
Yet self with self has war ; the tempting sight 
Of fruit on sale provokes his appetite ; — 



GEORGE CRABBE. I55 

See! Iiow he walks the sweet seduction by; 
That he is tempted costs him first a sigh,— 
'Tis dangerous to indulge, 'tis grievous to deny! 
This he will choose, and whispering asks the price, 
The purchase dreadful, but the portion nice; 
Within the pocket he explores the pence; 
Without temptation strikes on either sense, 
The sight, the smell ; — but then he thinks again, 
money gone! while fruit nor taste remain. 
Meantime there comes an eager thoughtless boy, 
Who gives the price and only feels the joy : 
Example dire! the youthful miser stops, 
And slowly back the treasured coinage drops; 
Heroic deed! for should he now comply, 
Can he to-morrow's appetite deny? 
Beside, these spendthrifts who so freely live. 
Cloy'd with their purchase, will a portion give: — 
Here ends debate, he buttons up his store. 
And feels the comfort that it burns no more. 

Unlike to him the Tyrant boy, whose sway 
All hearts acknowledge; him the crowds obey; 
At his command they break through every rule; 
Whoever governs, he controls the school : 
'Tis not the distant emperor moves their fear, 
But the proud viceroy who is ever near. 

Verres ^^ could do that mischief in a day. 
For which not Rome, in all its power could pay. 
And these boy-tyrants will their slaves distress: 
And do the wrongs no master can redress; 
The mind they load with fear: it feels disdain 
For its own baseness ; yet it tries in vain 
To shake th' admitted power; — the coward comes again ! 
'Tis more than present pain these tyrants give, 
Long as we've life some strong impressions live; 
And these young ruffians in the soul will sow 
Seeds of all vices that on weakness grow, 



156 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Hark ! at his word the trembling younglings flee, 
Where he is walking none must walk but he. 
See! from the winter-fire the weak retreat, 
His the warm corner, his the favorite seat, 
Save when he yields it to some slave to keep 
Awhile, then back, at his return to creep : 
At his command his poor dependents fly, 
And humbly bribe him as a proud ally; 
Flattered by all, the notice he bestows, 
Is gross abuse, and bantering and blows; 
Yet he's a dunce, and spite of all his fame 
Without the desk, within he feels his shame: 
For there the weaker boy, who felt his scorn, 
For him corrects the blunders of the morn ; 
And he is taught, unpleasant truth! to find 
The trembling body has a prouder mind. 

Hark ! to that shout, that burst of empty noise. 
From a rude set of bluff, obstreperous boys. 
They who, like colts let loose, with vigor bound, 
And thoughtless spirit, o'er the beaten ground ; 
Fearless they leap, and every youngster feels 
His Alma^^ active in his hands and heels. 

These are the sons of farmers, and they come 
WMth partial fondness for the joys of home ; 
Their minds are coursing in their fathers' fields, 
And e'en the dream a lively pleasure yields ; 
They, much enduring, sit the allotted hours, 
And o'er a grammar waste their sprightly powers ; 
They dance ; but them can measured steps delight, 
Whom horse and hound to daring deeds excite? 
Nor could they bear to wait from meal to meal, 
Did they not slyly to the chamber steal. 
And there the produce of the basket seize. 
The mother's gift I still studious of their ease. 
Poor Alma, thus oppress'd, forbears to rise. 
But rests or revels in the arms and thighs. 



GEOTtGE CRABBE. l5t 

'* But is it sure that study will repay 
The more attentive and forbearing* ? " — Nay ! 
The farm, the ship, the humble shop have each 
Gains which severest study seldom reach. 

At College place a youth, who means to raise 
His state by merit, and his name by praise; 
Still much he hazards, there is serious strife 
In the contentions of a scholar's life: 
Not all the mind's attention, care, distress, 
Nor diligence itself, ensure success : 
His jealous heart a rival's power may dread, 
Till its strong feelings have confused his head ; 
And, after days and months, nay, years of pain. 
He finds just lost the object he would gain. 
But grant him this and all such life can give, 
For other prospects he begins to live ; 
Begins to feel that man was formed to look 
And long for other objects than a book : 
In his mind's eye his house and glebe he sees. 
And farms and talks with farmers at his ease; 
And time is lost, till fortune sends him forth 
To a rude world unconscious of his worth, 
There in some petty parish to reside. 
The college boast, then turn'd the village guide; 
And though awhile his flock and dairy please. 
He soon reverts to former joys and ease, 
Glad when a friend shall come to break his rest, 
And speak of all the pleasures they possess'd. 
Of masters, fellows, tutors, all with whom 
They shared those pleasures, never more to come; 
Till both conceive the times by bliss endear'd. 
Which once so dismal and so dull appear'd. 

But fix our Scholar, and suppose him crown'd 
With all the glory gain'd on classic ground ; 
Suppose the world without a sigh resign'd. 
And to his college all his care confined ; 



158 THE TEACHER IN LITEBATUBE. 

Give him all honors that such states allow, 
The freshman's terror and the tradesman's bow; 
Let his apartments with his taste agree, 
And all his views be those he loves to see; 
Let him each day behold the savory treat, 
For which he pays not, but is paid to eat; 
These joys and glories soon delight no more, 
Although, withheld, the mind is vex'd and sore; 
The honor too is to the place confined. 
Abroad they know not each superior mind : 
Strangers no wranglers in these figures see, 
Nor give they worship to a high degree; 
Unlike the prophet's is the scholar's case. 
His honor all is in his dwelling place; 
And there such honors are familiar things; 
What is a monarch in a crowd of kings ? 
Like other sovereigns he's by forms address'd, 
By statutes govern' d and with rules opprees'd. 

When all these forms and duties die away. 
And the day passes like the former day, 
Then of exterior things at once bereft, 
He's to himself and one attendant left ; 
Nae, John too goes ; nor aught of service more 
Remains for him ; he gladly quits the door; 
And, as he whistles to the cottage-gate. 
He kindly pities his poor master's fate. 

Books cannot always please, however good; 
Minds are not ever craving for their food ; 
But sleep will soon the weary soul prepare 
For cares to-morrow that were this day's care: 
For forms, for feasts, that sundry times have past, 
And formal feasts that will forever last. 

'^ But then from Study will no comforts rise?" 
Yes ! such as studious minds alone can prize; 
Comforts, yea ! — joys ineffable they find. 
Who seek the prouder pleasures of the mind : 



geouge cnA^BE. 159 

The soul, collected in those happy hours, 
Then makes her efforts, then enjoys her powers; 
And in those seasons feels herself repaid, 
For labors past and honors long delay 'd. 

No! 'tis not worldly gain, although by chance 
The sons of learning may to wealth advance; 
Nor station high, though in some favoring hour 
The sons of learning may arrive at power; 
Nor is it glory, though the public voice 
Of honest praise will make the heart rejoice: 
But 'tis the mind's own feelings give the joy, 
Pleasures she gathers in her own employ — 
Pleasures that gain or praise cannot bestow, 
Yet can dilate and raise them when they flow. 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

The redeeming and distinguishing feature of Crabbe's genius was its 
fidelity to nature, even when it was dull and unprepossessing. His power 
of observation and description might be limited, but his pictures haveall 
the force of dramatic representation, and may be compared to those ac- 
tual and existing models which the sculptor or painter works from, instead 
of vague and general conceptions. They are often too true, and human 
nature being exhibited in its naked reality, with all its defects, and not 
through the bright and alluring medium of romance or imagination, our 
vanity is shocked and our pride mortified. His anatomy of character 
and passion harrows up our feelings, and leaves us in the end sad and 
ashamed of our common nature. The personal circumstances and ex- 
perience of the poet affected the bent of his genius. He knows how un- 
true and absurd were the pictures of rural life which figured in poetry. 
His own youth was dark and painful — spent in low society, amidst Avant 
and misery, irascible gloom and passion. Latterly, he had more of the 
comforts and elegancies of social life at his command than Cowper — his 
rival as a domestic painter. He not only could have "wheeled his sofa 
round, let fall the curtains, and, with the bubbling and loud-hissing urn" 
on the table ''welcome peaceful evening in," but the amenities of refined 
and intellectual society were constantly present \vith him, or at his call. 
Yet he did not, like Cowper, attempt to describe them, or to paint their 
manifold charms. When he took up his pen, his mind turned to Aid- 
borough, and its wild amj^hibious race — to the parish workhouse, where 



160 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

the wheel hummed doleful through the day— to erring damsels and luck- 
less swains, the prey of overseers of Justice— or to the haunts of desperate 
poachers and smugglers, gypsies and gamblers, where vice and misery 
stalked undisguised in their darkest forms. He stirred up the dregs of 
human society, and exhibited their blackness and deformity, yet worked 
them into poetry. It must be confessed, however, that Crabbe was in 
general a gloomy painter of life— that he was fond of depicting the un- 
lovely and unamiable— and that, either for poetic effect or from painful 
experience, he makes the bad of life predominate over the good. His 
pathos and tenderness are generally linked to something coarse, start- 
ling, or humiliating— to disappointed hopes of unavailing sorrow— 
"Still we tread the same coarse way, 
The present 's still a cloudy day." 
The minuteness with which he dwells on such subjects sometimes 
makes his descriptions tedious, and apparently unfeeling. He drags for- 
ward every defect, every vice and failing, not for the purpose of educing 
something good out of evil, but, as it would seem, merely for the 
purpose of completing the picture. In his higher flights, where scenes of 
strong passion, vice or remorse, are depicted, Crabbe is a moral poet, 
purifying the heart, as the object of tragedy has been defined, by terror 
and pity, and by fearful delineations of the misery and desolation caused 
by unbridled passion. His story of Sir Eustace Gkey is a domestic 
tragedy of this kind, related with almost terrific power, and with lyrical 
energy of versification. His general style of versification is the couplet 
of Pope (he has been wittily called 'Pope in worsted stockings'), but 
less flowing and melodious, and often ending in points and quibbles. 
Thus, in describing his cottage furniture, he says: 

*' No wheels are here for either wool or flax, 
But packs of cards made up of sundry packs." 
His thrifty housewife, Widow Goe, falls down in sickness — 
"Heaven in her eye, and in her hand her keys." 
This jingling style heightens the effect of his humorous and homely 
descriptions; but it is too much of a manner, and mars the finer passages. 
Crabbe has high merit as a painter of English scenery. He is here as 
original and forcible as in delineating character. His marine landscapes 
are peculiarly fresh and striking ; and he invests even the sterile fens and 
barren sands with interest. His objects are seldom picturesque; but he 
noted every weed and plant — the purple bloom of the heath, the dwarfish 
flowers among the wild gorse, the slender grass of the sheep-walk, and 
even the pebbles, sea-weed, and shells amid 

"The glittering waters on the shingles rolled." 

Robert Chambers. 



WILLIAM HOWITT. 

1795 — 1879. 

William Howitt was born at Heanor, Derbyshire, England, in 1795. 
His parents were Quakers, in whose faith he was brought up and edu- 
cated. He was a great lover of nature, and spent much of his leisure in 
the woods and by the brooks in his young days. He married in 1823 a 
woman who occupies a position in literature no less distinguished than 
himself. He and his wife were prolific writers, publishing over fifty vol- 
umes, besides editing for a time a weekly journal. The volumes were 
composed of original works and translations from the German and Scan- 
dinavian literature. Both he and his wife were poets and writers of 
prose. The volume from which the following selection was made, "The 
Book of Seasons, or the Calendar of Nature," was published in 1831. His 
last days were spent in Rome, where he died March 3, 1879. 

The Country Schoolmaster. 

(From the " Country Year Book," by William Howitt.) 

" The Tillage all declared how much he knew : 
'Twas certain he could write— and cipher too." 

The country schoolmaster is one of the most marked charac- 
ters. Spite of the tingling remembrance of his blows, we have a 
real love for him, and sympathize with him in his sense of neglect. 
He complains, and justly too, that he has had the first molding 
of the intellects of many of the greatest geniuses which this coun- 
try has produced, yet what genius in his glory has looked back 
to his old dominie with a grateful recollection ? The worthy Sir 
Walter Scott is almost the only one. Dominie Sampson, Reuben 
Butler, Jedediah Cleishbotham, schoolmaster and parish-clerk of 
Gandercleuch, and Peter Pattieson, are delightful proofs of the 
fact.*^' But Scott saw the world of peculiar character which lies in 
the country schoolmaster, and disdained not to honor it as it 
deserves. Beyond this, little renown, in faith, has the village 

2 T. L.-ll (161) 



162 THE TEACHEH IN LITERATURE. 

Dionysius won. Shenstone^^ has done fitting honors to the village 
schoolmistress; but the master has been fain to shelter himself 
under the sole bush of laurel which good-natured Oliver Gold- 
smith has planted to his renown in the " Deserted Village." 

But, "past is all his fame," — at least with this learned and 
march-of-intellect modern public. We have steam and rail- 
roads ; and now there is a cry for a steam and railroad system 
of education. Lancaster,^^ and his rival Bell,^^ have turned the 
schoolmaster into a sort of drill sergeant, and marched the chil- 
dren of the poor by whole troops and regiments into the mys- 
teries of A B C. But beyond the mysteries of A B C they have 
not got them ; or, if they have taught them more than that, it is 
only to calculate how they can cheat one another with the 
greatest adroitness. By their ABC they are able to see further 
into mischief : their letters prove no lets to a wider acquaintance 
with crime; and their maneuvers within doors are only the fore- 
runners to maneuvers without. The moral interior is found to 
be yet untouched by the marching and maneuvering machinery; 
and there is now one wide outcry for a national, religious, moral, 
and intellectual education, or all is declared to be over with us. 

Well, success to the experiment! Let churchmen and dis- 
senters adjust their plans for carrying it on without running foul 
of one another. Let us have a great national school in each 
parish in the kingdom. It is easy to build when the funds are 
once obtained. Plenty of children are ready to rush in as soon 
as the new doors are opened; but there is just one little diffi- 
culty, which the sanguine abettors of the scheme, amid all their 
valor, by which they knock down objections, and dispose of diffi- 
culties as easily as Don Quixote squandered the flock of sheep, 
and never seem for a moment to dream of; and that is, Where 
are the schoolmasters to come from ? 

Ay, where are the schoolmasters to come from? A single 
schoolmaster is not a thing that can be made in a moment. If 
he is to be good for anything, he is a work of toil and time. How, 
then, are you to come in a single day to at least ten thousand of 
them? for so many are our parishes. From the days of Milton 



WILLIAM HOWITT. 163 

to the present, what philosophers and statesmen have been labor- 
ing to devise a perfect system of tuition ! Locke strove to unlock 
the mystery; Bacon had tried it before him; Descartes, Rousseau, 
Miss Edgeworth, Miss Hamilton, Hannah More, and a great 
many more misses, have been at it since and missed it. Well, 
then, if we have not been able to discover the true sytem, how 
are we to discover — heigh presto — the true men? Is the system, 
and the men to work it, to be created by the miraculous powers 
of an act of parliament? An act of parliament can decree funds, 
and create a commission and board of commissioners, I grant 
you ; and that is about all that the majority of our most zealous 
advocates for government education seem to see. A commis- 
sionership, with about eight hundred a year, and a guinea a day 
for expenses, is a particularly beautiful prospect; and to desire a 
commissionership, is to desire a good thing. But will a board of 
commission, as a matter of course, become a board of education? 
By what enchanter's wand are messieurs, the commissions, to 
evoke, in an hour, for the supply of all her Majesty's ten thousand 
parishes, as many schoolmasters, accomplished in all the knowl- 
edge, the moral fitness, and the practical skill which are necessary 
to carry into effect such a perfect system of popular education as 
the world has not yet seen? The system of Fellenberg is, per- 
haps, the highest approach to that system of literary, intellectual 
and Christian education which we need. But where are the men 
to direct even Fellenberg's system? Fellenberg,^^ during a labor 
of forty years, has been compelled to begin by teaching himself, 
and to go on by molding and creating teachers to his mind. All 
those in England who have essayed a better system of popular 
education— Lancaster, Bell, Wood of Edinburgh, Captain Bren- 
ton of Hackney, Lady Byron at Ealing, Lord Lovelace atOcham, 
Dr. Kaye Shuttleworth at Norwood, Mrs. Tuckfield at Fulford, 
inDevonshire — have found that there were no such things as mas- 
ters ready made to carrj^ out a truly effective system of popular 
tuition. They all cry out, "We want masters." They all declare, 
" There are no such things in existence as schoolmasters qualified 
to administer a suitable education to the people." 



164 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Thus, they who are clamoring for an immediate enactment for 
a national system of education — and no man is more anxious 
for a good national system than I am— are calling for a clock 
which shall go without a pendulum; a steam-engine without pis- 
ton or cyhnder; or a coach without horses. They want, in fact, 
a system superior to all that has yet been introduced, and ten 
thousand masters to work it ; each individual man of whom must 
be in himself the highest specimen of combined intelligence and 
moral training: in a word, the noblest achievement of modern 
education, or he is not competent to the solemn duties of his 
office. The old race of schoolmasters cannot serve the need; 
they are declared to be ignorant pretenders, and on an erroneous 
system. Here leave we, then, the flaming advocate of instanter 
reformation, a national enactment, and ten thousand duly pre- 
pared and accomplished professors of the new system, to chew 
the cud over this one little query, <' Where are the schoolmasters 
to come from?" and turn again to our master of the old school. 

Poor fellow; true enough are Oliver's words, "Past is all his 
fame." He has had a quiet, a flattering life of it, for many a 
generation ; the rustics have gazed and wondered. 

That one small head could carry all he kuew. 

But the innovations of this innovating age have reached even 
him at last. He has built his cabin in an obscure hamlet; or, as 
in Ireland, set us his hedge-school undersome sunny bank ; hehas 
retreated to the remotest glens, and the fastnesses of unfre- 
quented mountains, but even there the modern spirit of reform 
has found him out. He sees the cloud of ruinous blackness col- 
lecting over his head, out of which are about to spring ten thou- 
sand schoolmasters of a new-fangled stamp; and he knows that 
it is all up with him forever. The railroad of national education 
is about to run through his ancient patrimony, and he -shakes 
his head as he asks himself whether he is to come in for equitable 
compensation? No; his fame is past and biis occupation is going 
too. He is to be run down by an act of parliament, though he 
never asked for an act of parliament to set him up. He is the 



WILLIAM HO WITT. 165 

selector of his own location— the builder of his own fortunes. The 
good old honest stimulant of caring for himself, led him to care 
for the education of his neighbors' children. He needed no sub- 
scription to buy land and build a spacious school ; he opened his 
cottage door, and in walked all the lads of the hamlet and neigh- 
boring farms, with slates hung around their necks, books under 
their arms, and their dinners in their bags. For four-pence a 
week, reading and spelling; and six-pence for those who wrote 
and ciphered; he gave them hard benches and hard blows; and 
when he had as many stowed into his little house as were about 
enough to stifle him and one another, thought himself a lucky 
fellow, and looked round on the whole horde, with dirty faces and 
corduroy jackets and trowsers, rough heads, and w^hite or blue 
pinafores, with a pride which saw the future neighborhood filled 
with clever fellows, all of his own drubbing. 

Poor old schoolmaster! little did'st thou foresee these topsy- 
turvy times when I used to sit among such a rustic crew, and 
achieve pot-hooks and fish-hooks at that sorely blotted and lac- 
erated desk, and saw thee sitting in thy glory, looking, in my 
eyes, the very image of mortal greatness. Little, as we stolelate 
into school, having been delayed by the charms of birds '-nests 
or cockchaffers, and heard thee thunder forth in lion tones, "Eh! 
what's this? — 

*A miller a moller, 

A ten o'clock scholar — ' 

March this way! march this way ! "—little, as we ran, wild 
truants, through cowslip fields and by sunny brooks, with hearts 
beating with mingled rapture and dread of the morrow, — little, 
as we riotously barred thee out for a holiday, did we ever dream 
that so dark a day could come upon thee! But, in faith, it is 
just at hand ; and if we are to preserve a portrait of the country 
schoolmaster, we must sketch it now or never. 

Oliver Goldsmith has hit off some of his most striking features. 
The country schoolmaster, in his finest field of glory, the hamlet 
—where, except the clergyman, there are no higher personages 



166 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

than old-fashioned farmers, who received their hook-hirning from 
himself or his predecessor,— is a man of importance, both in his 
own and others' eyes. He jet makes the rustics stare at his 
"words of learned length and thundering sound." He can yet 
dispute with the parson, though he is more frequently the pro- 
found admirer of his reverence. He looks upon himself as the 
greatest man in the parish, whose knowledge he extols to the 
skies, and whose reading of the church services he pronounces to 
be the finest in the world. The villagers always link "our par- 
son and our schoolmaster" in one breath of admiration. If the 
schoolmaster can quote a sentence of Lathi, wonderful is then 
their wonder at his power. He is always styled "a long-headed 
fellow, as deep as the north star." As, in Goldsmith's days, he can 
still often gauge, and is the land-measurer of the district. In the 
bright evening nook of the public-house, where the farmers and 
the village shopkeepers, and the blacksmith duly congregate, 
his voice is loud, his air is lofty, and his word is law. Here he 
often confounds their intellects by some puzzling query as 
*' Whether the egg or the bird was made first?" "What 
^an Cain expected to meet in the wilderness before there 
was a man there?" or, "Who was the father of Zebedee's chil- 
dren?" 

If self-educated, as he generally is, he has spent the best part 
of his life in studying Latin ; or he is deep in mathematics; or 
he has dived into the mysteries of astrology, has great faith in 
Raphael's annual prognostications, and in "Culpepper's Herbal." 
His literature consists of a copy of verses sent now and then to 
the neighboring newspaper, or solutions of mathematical prob- 
lems for the learned columns of the same. Perhaps he adventures 
a flight so high as one of the London magazines; and if, per- 
chance, his lucubration should appear in the " Gentleman's," his 
pride is unbounded, and his reputation in his neighborhood 
made for life. His library has been purchased at the book-stall 
of the next market-town, or he has taken it in at the door, in 
numbers, from the walking stationer. "Rapin's History of Eng- 
land," "Josephus,'' ^nd "Barclay's Dictionary," in large 



WILLIAM HOWITT. 167 

quartos, on coarse paper; and the histories, with coarse cuts, are 
sure to figure among them, fie carries on a little trade in ink, 
pens, writing paper, and other stationery, himself. If he be mar- 
ried, his wife is almost sure to drive a still brisker trade in gin- 
gerbread, Darby and Joans, toffy and lollipops. As he is famous 
for his penmanship, he is the great letter-writer of the neighbor- 
hood; and many is the sweet secret that is confined to his ear. 
Nay, he letters sign-boards, and cart-boards, and coffin-plates, 
for who is there besides that can? He makes wills, and has, in 
former days, before the lawyers hedged round their monopoly 
with the penalty of illegality on such deeds, drawn conveyances, 
and was the peaceful practitioner in all such affairs for his neigh- 
borhood. 

Oh! multifarious are the doings of the country schoolmaster, 
and amusing their variety. What an air of pedagogue pomp 
distinguishes him ; how antiquely amusing is his school costume 
often; how much more amusing the piebald patchwork of his 
language. His address has frequently no little of mine ancient 
Pistol in it. But how uniquely curious is the country school- 
master in love ! 

I happen to have in my possession the actual love-letter of a 
country schoolmaster, which, as a curiosity, is worth transcrib- 
ing. The dominie has now long been married to his fair one, 
who is as pretty a little Tartar as any in the country. He 
writes something in the phraseology of a Quaker ; but he is, in 
fact, the parish-clerk. In copying this letter, whatever any o£ 
my readers may think, I alter not a word, except the actual 
names of places. 

NuTHURST, Nov. 1st, 1816. 

Esteemed Friend.— I embrace the present opportunity of addressing 
these few lines unto thee, hoping they will find thee in good health, which 
leaves me the same, thank my God ! Respected P., I have often told thee I 
don't much like illustrating my sentiments by correspondence, but I 
write with a majestic air of animation and dehght when I communicate 
my thoughts to one that I love beyond description : yes ! to one that is 
virtuous, innocent and unblemishable; which has a comely behavior, a 
loving disposition, and a goodly principle. And thou the person 1 charm- 



168 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ing fair one, which may justly boast of thy virtue, and laugh at others' 
aspersion. Dear P., when I reflect on all thy amiable qualities, and fond 
endearments, I am charmingly exalted, and amply satisfied. My senses 
are more stimulated with love, and every wish gives thee a congratula- 
tion. Amiable P., I've meditated on our former accompaniments, and 
been wonderfully dignified at thine condescending graces. I, in particu- 
lar, admire thy good temper, and thine relentful forgiveness. For when 
we have partook of a walk together, some trifling idea has exasperated 
my disposition, and rendered my behavior ungenerous and disreputable. 
Thou, like a benevolent friend, soothed the absurd incensement, and in- 
stantly resuscitated our respective amorousness, and doubly exag- 
gerated our beloved enamors. While above all others I thee regard, and 
while love is spontaneously imprinted in our hearts, let it have its un- 
bounded course. Loving friend, I was more than a little gratified that 
thou wrote to thy mistress, which was thy duty, for she has been thy 
peculiar friend, and gave thee competent admonition. She is a faithful 
monitor, and a well-wisher to thine everlasting welfare. I was absolutely 
grieved when I heard of thee not being well, and completely fretted that I 
was aloof, and could not sympathize with thine inconsolitary moments. 
I candidly hope thy cough is better, and I earnestly desire that our ab- 
sence maybe immediately transformed into lasting presence, that we may 
enjoy our fond hopes and loving embraces. 

My dear, the last Sunday that I was at Bevington, I parted with thee 
about four o'clock; and I stopped in the market-place looking at the 
soldiers parading, and barkening the band playing until about six 
o'clock' then I proceeded on my nightly excursion. 1 called at the pub- 
lic-house, and was spouting a little of my romancing nonsense, and I in- 
stantly received a blow from a person in the adjoining company. I never 
retaliated, which was very surprising, but a wisely omission. I should 
not have troubled thee with this tedious explanation hadst thou not 
been preposterously informed about the subject. Thy ungrateful rela- 
tions can't help telling thee of my vain actions, which is said purposely 
to abolish our acquaintance. But we are so accustomed to their insinu- 
ating persuasions and ambi-dexterous tales, that renders them unlikely 
to execute their willful designs. Our loves are too inflexible than to be 
separated by a set of contemptuous oafs. 

My dearest Dear, at this present time I wish I had thee dangling be- 
tween my arms. I would give that sweet mouth ten thousand kisses, 
for I prefer thy well-composed structure above all other secular beauties. 

Loving P., I will positively come to fetch thee at the respective period, 
when we can have a consolable and delightful journey homeward, reani- 
mate our fond and innocent delights, salute at pleasure, and every kiss 
will sweeten our progressive paths ; they will add delightfully to our 



WILLIAM HO WITT. 169 

warm affections, and invigorate us to perform our journeywith the 
greatest taeility. 

I thank thee for sending thy coraplimental love to me, which I con- 
clude with ten thousand times ten thousand respects. I renmin thine 
ever faithful and constant lover. S. G. 

But this is only the ludicrous side of the country school- 
master; he has another and a nobler one. Much as we may 
now despise him, and lightly as we may desire, by one sweeping 
act of parliament, to consign him and all his compeers to instant 
ruin and a union workhouse finale, to him the country owes a 
large debt of gratitude. \Yithout aid of parliament or parish, 
from age to age, he has opened his little gymnasium, and tamed 
and civilized the fauns and satyrs of the rural wilderness. What 
little light and knowledge have radiated through our villages 
and fields, it is he that has kindled them, it is he who has 
enabled the farmer, the miller, the baker, and every little trades- 
man and mechanic to conduct his affairs, manage his markets, 
and add to the capital of the nation. It is he who has taught 
the rough cub of the hamlet to make his bow, and to respect his 
superiors; in fact, to get a glimmering of morals and manners, 
and a possible shape of humanity. Nay, many of these humble 
men have been clerg^^men, who have won honors at college and 
have been full of the fire of genius and the kernel of wisdom, but 
who, not having the golden wings of this world, have sunk down 
into obscure Thorpes and Wicks, and in far-off fields and forest 
regions have gone on their way, like little unnoticed brooks, 
moaning over their lot, yet scattering plenty and greenness 
around them. How many there are at this day, sitting in un- 
couth garbs, in uncouth places, on dreary moorlands, and 
among wild fells and mountains ! Such have I seen in various 
parts of these kingdoms, and wondered at their patience and 
holy resignation. On the tops of wildest hills, by some little 
chapel, like that of Firbank, near Sedberg, in Yorkshire, I have 
opened the door of a cabin, which was filled with a hum as of 
bees, and found a company of bare-legged boys and girls round 
a peat fire on the hearth, and a young man with the air of a 



170 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

scholar and a gentleman, sitting as their teacher. Yes, in many 
a bleak and picturesque situation, where the old schoolbell hangs 
in the old chestnut tree; in a little rude church or chapel, or 
ancient schoolhouse, are such men as Wordsworth has described 
in *' Robert Walker of Cumberland," still to be found. 

What a picture that of Robert Walker is! Eight hours in 
each day, during five days in each week, and half of Saturday, 
except when the labors of husbandry were very urgent, he was 
occupied in teaching. His seat was within the rails of the altar; 
the communion table was his desk; and like Shenstone's school- 
mistress, the master employed himself at the spinning-wheel, 
while the children were repeating their lessons by his side. 

The mountain patriarch, who never made any charge for 
teaching, but took all that came— and such as could afford gave 
him what they pleased — not only performed service twice every 
Sunday, but was the scrivener of the neighborhood, writing out 
petitions, deeds of conveyance, wills, convenants, etc.; so that at 
certain periods of the year he was obliged to sit up the greater 
part of the night. Besides spinning at all possible hours, he also 
cultivated his garden and a little farm, and assisted his neigh- 
bors in haymaking and shearing their sheep. '<I found him," 
said a stranger, "sitting at the head of his table, dressed in a 
coarse blue frock trimmed with black horn buttons; a check 
shirt, a leathern strap about his neck for a stock, a coarse apron, 
and a pair of great wooden-soled shoes, plated with iron to pre- 
serve them ; a child upon his knee, eating his breakfast; his wife 
and other children waiting on each other, or teasing and spinning 
wool. Every Sunday, served upon the long table, were messes of 
broth for such of his congregation who came from a distance, 
and usually took their seats as part of his household." And 
what was the value of his living ? £17 10 s. a year! It would be 
difficult, perhaps, to find exactly another Robert Walker, though 
we believe, many a Welsh clergyman could match him, and men 
of like character and habits many a primitive nook can yet show 
as. It is under such men that Shakespeare, Burns, Wordsworth, 
Newton, Crabbe, and many another noble genius, have sate in 



WILLIAM HO WITT. 171 

their boyish days and received from them the elements of that 
knowledge with which they were afterwards to do such marvels be- 
fore all mankind. We will warrant that such was the man whom 
good-natured Goldsmith first trembled at, and then immortal- 
ized. The country schoolmaster, indeed, has cause of high pride; 
and when we pass an act of parliament for our ten thousand new 
schools, and spec-and-span new masters— Battersea Training 
Establishment will not supply us all at once— let us remember 
the long reign and the old glories, and the patient and ill-paid 
merits of the old country schoolmaster, and "temper the wind to 
the shorn lamb." Bitter will be the day of revolution for him, 
but we can make it less bitter; hard will be the fall, but kindness 
and generous sympathy can break it, and dismiss the pictur- 
esque, if somewhat dogmatic old man, to an old age of 
honorable ease. 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

''An enthusiastic lover of his subject, Mr. Howitt is remarkable for the 
fullness and variety of his pictorial sketches, the richness and purity of 
his fancy, and the occasional force and eloquence of his style. 'If I could 
but arouse in other minds,' he says, 'that ardent and ever-growing love 
of the beautiful works of God in the creation, which I feel in myself— if I 
could but make it in others what it has been to me — 

The nurse, 
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
Of all my moral being— 

If I could open to any the mental eye which can never be again closed, 
but which finds more and more clearly revealed before it beauty, wisdom, 
and peace in the splendors of the heavens, in the majesty of seas and 
mountains, in the freshness of winds, the ever-changing lights and 
shadows of fair landscapes, the solitude of heaths, the radiant face of 
bright lakes, and the solemn depths of woods, then indeed should I re- 
joice. Oh that I could but touch a thousand bosoms with that melan- 
choly which often visits mine, when I behold little children endeavoring 
to extract amusement from the very dust, and straws, and pebbles of 
squalid alleys, shut out from the free and glorious countenance of nature, 
and think how differently the children of the peasantry are passing the 
golden hours of childhood ; wandering with bare heads and unshod feet, 
perhaps, but singing a ' childish wordless melody ' through vernal lanes, 



172 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

3r prying into a thousand sylvan leafy nooks, by the liquid music of run- 
ning waters, amidst the fragrant heath, or on the flowery lap of the 
meadow, occupied with winged wonders without end. O that I could but 
baptize every heart with the sympathetic feeling of what the city-pent 
child is condemned to lose ; how blank, and poor, and joyless must be the 
images which fill its infant bosom to that of the country one, whose mind 

Will be a mansion for all lovely forms, 
His memory be a dwelling-place 
For all sweet sounds and harmonies! 

I feel, however, an animating assurance that nature will exert a per- 
petually-increasing influence, not only as a most fertile source of pure 
and substantial pleasures — pleasures which, unlike many others, produce, 
instead of satiety, desire — but also as a great moral agent; and what 
effects I anticipate from this growing taste may be readily inferred, when 
I avow it as one of the most fearless articles of my creed that it is scarcely 
possible for a man in whom its power is oncefirmlyestablished to become 
utterly debased in sentiment or abandoned in principle. His soul may 
be said to be brought into habitual union with the Author of nature — 

Haunted forever by the Eternal Mind." 



HUGH MILLER. 

1802-185G. 

Hugh Miller, one of the most remarkable self-taught men of genius, 
was born at Cromarty, in Scotland, October 10, 1802. His father was a 
sagacious and strong-willed seaman, who perished at sea when Hugh 
was but five years old. His mother was aided in the bringing up of her 
son by her two brothers. They were men of scrupulous integrity, sincere 
religion, unflagging industry and resolute contentment, who impressed 
these characteristics upon their nephew. But Hugh had inherited from 
his father a strong individuality and obstinate force of will. The en- 
chantment of open air and freedom made him at thirteen an incorrigible 
truant, and his schoolmaster thought it likely that he would prove to be 
a dunce. But the boy was father of the man. He was forever writing. 
His taste for composition was so strong as to lead him to apprentice 
himself to a stonemason, because, being unemployed during the frosty 
months, he could employ this leisure in the ecstacy of writing. The ad- 
vantages of his decision were indisputable. Under the discipline of labor 
the refractory schoolboy became a thoughtful, sober-minded man. In 
after life, with solemnity and pathos, he exclaims, "Noble, upright, self- 
relying toil! Who that knows thy solid worth and value would be 
ashamed of thy hard hands, thy soiled vestments, thy obscure tasks,— 
thy humble cottage, hard couch and homely fare !" 

After completing his apprenticeship, he returned to Cromarty, and 
worked in happy patience, sedulously prosecuting in his leisure hours the 
grand object of his ambition, to write good English. He invigorated and 
enriched his mind by careful reading and by being keenly and habitually 
observant of man and nature. In advertising himself as a mason 
he came before the world as a literary man. After repeated literary fail- 
ures, he published a volume of poems. This was the beginning of his 
fame, but his field was prose. His wife encouraged his efforts, the mallet 
and chisel gradually di'oppedfrom his hands, he became a bank clerk un- 
til the political excitement of the Reform Bill brought him into prominence. 
He esteemed the Scottish Church themost valuable institution possessed 
by the Scottish people, and took sides with those who claimed that Scot- 
tish congregations should have no pastors thrust upon them. In 1839 
he wrote his famous pamphlet-letter to Lord Brougham, which resulted 

(173) 



174 THt: TEACHER IN LITERATVUE. 

in Miller becoming editor of the Witness, a bi-weekly newspaper published 
in Edinburgh advocating non-intrusion and spiritual independence. His 
championship of a Free Church probably did more than any other single 
agency to win for it the suffrage of the Scottish people. He continued to 
edit this periodical until his death in 1856. 



Self-Education. 

(From "My Schools and Schoolmasters," by Hugh Miller.) 

It is now nearly a hundred years since Goldsmith remarked, in 
his little educational treatise, that " few subjects have been more 
frequently written upon than the education of youth." And 
during the century which has well nigh elapsed since he said so 
there have been so many more additional works given to the 
world on this fertile topic, that their number has been at least 
doubled. Almost all the men who ever taught a few pupils, with 
a great many more who never taught any, deem themselves 
qualified to say something original on education ; and perhaps 
few books of the kind have yet appeared, however mediocre their 
general tone, in which something worthy of being attended to 
has not actually been said. And yet, though I have read not a 
few volumes on the subject, and have dipped into a great many 
more, I never yet found in them the sort of direction or encour- 
agement which, in working out my own education, I most needed. 
They insisted much on the various modes of teaching others, but 
said nothing — or, what amounted to the same thing, nothing to 
the purpose — on the best mode of teaching one's self. And as 
my circumstances and position, at the time when I had most 
occasion to consult them, were those of by much the largest class 
of the people of this and every other civilized country, — for I was 
one of the many millions who need to learn, and yet have no one 
to teach them, — I could not help deeming the omission a serious 
one. I have since come to think, however, that a formal treatise 
on self-culture might fail to supply the want. Curiosity must be 
awakened ere it can be satisfied; nay, once awakened, it never 
fails in the end fully to satisfy itself; and it has occurred to me, 



HVGH MILLER. 175 

that by simply laying before the working men of the country 
the ''Story of my Education," I may succeed in first exciting 
their curiosity, and next, occasionally at least, in gratifying it 
also. They will find that by far the best schools I ever attended 
are schools open to them all, — that the best teachers I ever had 
are (though severe in their discipline) always easy of access, — 
and that the special form at which I was, if I may say so, most 
successful as a pupil, was a form to which I was drawn by a 
strong inclination, but at which I had less assistance from my 
brother men, or even from books, than at any of the others. 
There are few of the natural sciences which do not lie quite as 
open to the working men of Britain and America as geology did 
to me. 

My work, then, if I have not wholly failed in it, may be re- 
garded as a sort of educational treatise, thrown into the narra- 
tive form, and addressed more especially to working men. They 
will find that a considerable portion of the scenes and incidents 
which it records, read their lesson, whether of encouragement or 
warning, or throw their occasional lights on peculiarities of 
character or curious natural phenomena, to which their attention 
might be not unprofitably directed. Should it be found to pos- 
sess an interest to any other class, it will be an interest chiefly 
derivable from the glimpses which it furnishes of the inner life of 
the Scottish people, and its bearing on what has been somewhat 
clumsily termed " the condition-of-the-country question." My 
sketches will, I trust, be recognized as true to fact and nature. 
And as I have never perused the autobiography of a working 
man of the more observant type, without being indebted to it 
for new facts and ideas respecting the circumstances and charac- 
ter of some portion of the people with which I had been less per- 
fectly acquainted before, I can hope that, regarded simply asthe 
memoir of a protracted journey through districts of society not 
yet very sedulously explored, and scenes which few readers have 
had an opportunity of observing for themselves, my story may 
be found to possess some of the interest which attaches to the 
narratives of travelers who see what is not often seen, and know, 



176 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

in consequence, what is not generally known. In a work cast into 
the autobiographic form, the writer has always much to apolo- 
gize for. With himself for his subject, he usually tells not only 
more than he ought, but also, in not a few instances, more than 
he intends. For, as has been well remarked, whatever may be 
the character which a writer of his own Memoirs is desirous of as- 
suming, he rarely fails to betray the real one. He has almost 
always his unintentional revelations, that exhibit peculiari- 
ties of which he is not conscious, and weaknesses which he has 
failed to recognize as such; and it will, no doubt, be seen, that 
what is so generally done in works similar to mine, I have not es- 
caped doing. But I cast myself full on the good nature of the 
reader. My aims have, I trust, been honest ones; and should 1 
in any degree succeed in rousing the humbler classes to the im- 
portant work of self-culture and self-government, and in con- 
vincing the higher that there are instances in which working men 
have at least as legitimate a claim to their respect as to their 
pity, I shall not deem the ordinary penalties of the autobiogra- 
pher a price too high for the accomplishment of ends so im- 
portant. 

* * ***** 

I first became thoroughly a Scot some time in my tenth year; 
and the consciousness of country has remained tolerably strong 
within me ever since. My Uncle James had procured for me from 
a neighbor the loan of a common-stall edition of Blind Harry's 
" Wallace," ^^ as modernized by Hamilton; but after reading the 
first chapter,— a piece of dull genealogy, broken into very rude 
rhyme,— I tossed the volume aside as uninteresting; and only 
resumed it at the request of my uncle, who urged that simply for 
his amusement and gratification,! should read some three orfour 
chapters more. Accordingly, the three or four chapters more I 
did read ;— I read ''how Wallace killed young Selbie the Con- 
stable's son; " '' how Wallace fished in Irvine Water; " and " how 
Wallace killed the Churl with his own staff in Ayr;" and then 
Uncle James told me, in the quiet way in which he used to make 
a joke tell, that the book seemed to be rather a rough sort of 



HVGH MILLER. Ill 

production, filled with accounts of quarrels and bloodshed, and 
that I might read no more of it unless I felt inclined. But I now 
did feel inclined very strongly, and read on with increasing as- 
tonishment and delight. I was intoxicated with the fiery narra- 
tives of the blind minstrel,— with his fierce breathings of hot, 
intolerant patriotism, and his stories of astonishing prowess; 
and, glorying in being a Scot, and the countryman of Wallace 
and the Graham, I longed for a war with the Southron, that 
the wrongs and sufferings of these noble heroes might yet be 
avenged. All I had previously heard and read of the marvels of 
foreign parts, or the glories of modern battles, seemed tame and 
commonplace compared with the incidents in the life of Wallace, 
and I never after vexed my mother by wishing myself big enough 
to be a sailor. My Uncle Sandy, who had some taste for the re- 
finements of poetry, would fain have led me on from the exploits 
of Wallace to the " Life of the Bruce," which, in the form of a not 
very vigorous imitation of Dryden's <' Virgil," by one Harvey, 
was bound up in the same volume, and which my uncle deemed 
the better-written life of the two. And so far as the mere ameni- 
ties of style were concerned, he was, I dare say, right. But I 
could not agree with him. Harvey was by much too fine and 
too learned for me; and it was not until some years after, when 
I was fortunate enough to pick up one of the later editions of 
Barbour's "Bruce," that the Hero-King of Scotland assumed 
his right place in my mind beside its Hero-Guardian. There 
are stages of development in the immature youth of individuals, 
that seem to correspond with stages of development in the im- 
mature youth of nations; and the recollections of this early time 
enable me, in some measure, to understand how it was that, 
for hundreds of years. Blind Harry's "Wallace," with its rude 
and naked narrative, and its exaggerated incident, should 
have been, according to Lord Hailes, the Bible of the Scotch 
people. 

I quitted the dame's school at the end of the first twelve- 
month, after mastering that grand acquirement of my life, —the 
art of holding converse with books ; and was transferred straight- 

2 T. L.— 12 



178 THE TEACHER IN LITERATUBE. 

forth to the grammar school of the parish, at which there at- 
tended at the time about a hundred and twenty boys, with a 
class of about thirty individuals more, much looked down upon 
by the others, and not deemed greatly worth the counting, seeing 
that it consisted of only lassies. And here, too, the early indi- 
vidual development seems nicely correspondent with an early 
national one. In his depreciatory estimate of contemporary 
woman, the boy is always a true savage. The old parish school 
of the place had been nobly situated in a snug corner, between 
the parish churchyard and a thick wood; and from the interest- 
ing center which it formed, the boys, when tired of making 
dragon-horses of the erect headstones, or of leaping along the 
flat-laid memorials, from end to end of the graveyard, "without 
touching grass,'' could repair to the taller trees, and rise in the 
world by climbing among them. As, however, they used to en- 
croach, on these latter occasions, upon the laird's pleasure- 
grounds, the school had been removed ere my time to the sea- 
shore; where, though there were neither tombstones nor trees, 
there were some balancing advantages, of a kind which, perhaps, 
only boys of the old school could have adequately appreciated. As 
the school-windows fronted the opening of the Frith, not a vessel 
could enter the harbor that we did not see; and, improving 
through our opportunities, there was perhaps no educational 
institution in the kingdom in wdiich all sorts of barks and car- 
vels, from the fishing yawl to the frigate, could be more correctly 
drawn on the slate, or where any defect in bulk or rigging, in 
some faulty delineation, was surer of being more justly and un- 
sparingly criticised. Further, the town, which drove a great 
trade in salted pork at the time, had a killing-place not thirty 
yards from the school-door, where from eighty to a hundred pigs 
used sometimes to die for the general good in a single day; and 
it was a great matter to hear, at occasional intervals, the roar 
of death outside rising high over the general murmur within; or 
to be told by some comrade, returned from his five minutes' 
leave of absence, that a hero of a pig had taken three blows of 
the hatchet ere it fell, and that even after its subjection to the 



BVGH MILLEH. 179 

sticking process, it had got hold of Jock Keddie's hand in its 
mouth, and almost smashed his thumb. We learned, too, to 
know, from our signal opportunities of observation, not only a 
good deal about pig anatomy, — especially about the detached 
edible parts of the animal, such as the spleen and the pancreas, 
and at least one other very palatable viscus besides, — but be- 
came knowing also about the take and the curing of herrings. 
All the herring-boats during the fishing season passed our win- 
dows on their homeward way to the harbor; and, from their 
depth in the water, W'e became skillful enough to predicate the 
number of crans aboard of each with w^onderful judgment and 
correctness. In days of good general fishings, too, when the 
curing-3'ards proved too small to accommodate the quantities 
brought ashore, the fish used to be laid in glittering heaps oppo- 
site the schoolhouse door; and an exciting scene, that combined 
the bustle of the workshop with the confusion of the crowded 
fair, would straightway spring up within twenty yards of the 
forms at which w^e sat, greatly to our enjoyment, and, of course, 
not a little to our instruction. AVe could see, simply by peering 
over book or slate, the curers going about rousing their fish with 
salt, to counteract the effects of the dog-day sun; bevies of 
young women employed as gutters, and horridly incarnadined 
with blood and viscera, squatting around the heaps, knife in 
hand, and plying with busy fingers their well-paid labors, at the 
rate of a six-pence per hour ; relays of heavily-laden fish-wives 
bringing ever and anon fresh heaps of herrings in their creels; 
and outside of all, the coopers hammering as if for life and death, 
— now tightening hoops, and now slackening them, and anon 
caulking with bullrush the leaky seams. It is not every gram- 
mar school in which such lessons are taught as those, in which 
all were initiated, and in which all became in some degree accom- 
plished, in the grammar school of Cromarty! 

The building in which we met was a low, long, straw-thatched 
cottage, open from gable to gable, with a mud floor below, and 
an unlathed roof above ; and stretching along the naked rafters, 
which, when the master chanced to be absent for a few minutes, 



180 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

gave noble exercise in climbing;, there used frequently to lie a 
helm, or oar, or boathook, or even a foresail, — the spoil of some 
hapless peat-boat from the opposite side of the Frith. The High- 
land boatmen of Ross had carried on a trade in peats for ages 
with the Saxons of the town ; and as every boat owed a long-de- 
rived perquisite of twenty peats to the grammar school, and as 
payment was at times foolishly refused, the party of boys com- 
missioued by the master to exact it almost always succeeded, 
either b}^ force or stratagem, in securing and bringing along with 
them, in behalf of the institution, some spar, or sail, or piece of 
rigging, which, until redeemed by special treaty, and the payment 
of the peats, was stowed up over the rafters. These peat-exhibi- 
tions, which were intensely popular in the school, gave noble 
exercise to the faculties. It was always a great matter to see, 
just as the school met, some observant boy appear, cap in hand, 
before the master, and intimate thefact of an arrival at the shore, 
by the simple words, " Peat-boat, Sir." The master would then 
proceed to name a party, more or less numerous, according to 
the exigency ; but it seemed to be matter of pretty correct calcula- 
tion that, in the cases in which the peat claim was disputed, it 
required about twenty boys to bring home the twenty peats, or, 
lacking these, the compensatory sail or spar. There were certain 
ill-conditioned boatmen who almost always resisted, and who de- 
lighted to tell us — invariably, too, in very bad English — that our 
perquisite was properly the hangman's perquisite, made over to 
us because we were like him; not seeing— blockheads that they 
were !— that the very admission established in full the rectitude 
of our claim, and gave to us, amid our dire perils and faithful con- 
tendings, the strengthening consciousness of a Just quarrel. In 
dealing with these recusants, we used ordinarily to divide our 
forces into two bodies, the larger portion of the party filling their 
pockets with stones, and ranging themselves on some point of 
vantage, such as the pier-head; and the smaller stealing down as 
near the boat as possible, and mixing themselves up with thepur- 
ehasers of the peats. We then, after due warning given opened 
fire upon the boatmen ; and, when the pebbles were hopping about 



HUGH MILLER. 181 

them like hailstones, the boys below commonly succeeded insecur- 
ino-, under cover of the fire, the desired boathook or oar. And 
such were the ordinary circumstances and details of this piece of 
Spartan education; of which a townsman has told me he was 
strongly reminded when boarding, on one occasion, under cover 
of a well-sustained discharge of musketry, the vessel of an enemy 
that had been stranded on the shores of Berbice. 

The parish schoolmaster was a scholar and an honest man, 
and if a boy really wished to learn, be certainly could teach him. 
He had attended the classes at Aberdeen during the same ses- 
sions as the late Dr. Mearns, and in mathematics and the lan- 
guages had disputed the prize with the Doctor; but he had failed 
to get on equally well in the world; and now, in middle life, 
though a licentiate of the Church, he had settled down to be what 
he subsequently remained, — the teacher of a parish school. There 
were usually a few grown-up lads under his tuition,— careful sail- 
ors, that had staid ashore during the winter quarter to study 
navigation as a science, — or tall fellows happy in the patronage 
of the great, who, in the hope of being made excisemen, had come 
to school to be initiated in the mysteries of gauging, — or grown 
young men, who on second thoughts, and somewhat late in the 
day, had recognized the Church as their proper vocation; and 
these used to speak of the master's acquirements and teaching 
ability in the very highest terms. He himself, too, could appeal 
to the fact that no teacher in the north had ever sent more stu- 
dents to college, and that his better scholars almost always got 
on well in life. But then on the other hand, the pupils who wished 
to do nothing,— a description of individuals that comprised fully 
two-thirds of all the younger ones, — were not required to do much 
more than they wished; and parents and guardians were loud in 
their complaints that he was no suitable schoolmaster for them; 
though the boys themselves usually thought him quite suitable 
enough. 

He was in the habit of advising the parents or relations of 
those he deemed his clever lads, to give them a classical educa- 
tion; and meeting one day with Uncle James, he urged that 



182 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

I should be put on Latin. I was a great reader, he said ; and 
he found that when I missed a word in my English tasks, I al- 
most always substituted a synon^^m in the place of it. And so, 
as Uncle James had arrived, on data of his own, at a similar con- 
clusion, I was transferred from the English to the Latin form, 
and, with four other boys, fairly entered on the "Rudiments." 
I labored with tolerable dihgence for a day or two; but there 
was no one to tell me what the rules meant, or whether they realty 
meant anything; and when I got on as far as penna, a pen, and 
saw how the changes were rung on one poor word, that did not. 
seem to be of more importance in the old language than in the 
modern one, I began miserably to flag, and to long for my 
English reading, with its nice amusing stories, and its picture- 
like descriptions. The " Rudiments" was by far the dullest book I 
had ever seen. It embodied no thought that I could perceive,— 
it certainly contained no narrative, — it was a perfect contrast to 
not only the " Life and Adventures of Sir William Wallace," but 
to even the Voyages of Cook and Anson. None of my class fellows 
were by any means bright; — they had been all set on Latin with- 
out advice of the master; and yet, when he learned, which he 
soon did, to distinguish and call us up to our tasks by the name 
of the " heavy class," I was, in most instances, to be found at ita 
nether end. Shortly after, however, when we got a little farthei 
on, it was seen that I had a decided turn for translation. The 
master, good simple man that he was, always read to us in 
English, as the school met, thepiece of Latin given us as our task 
for the day; and as my memory was strong enough to carry 
away the whole translation in its order, I used to give him back 
in the evening, word for word, his ow^n rendering, which satisfied 
him on most occasions tolerably well. There werenoneof usmuch 
looked after; and I soon learned to bring books of amusement to 
the school with me, which, amid the Babel confusion of the place, 
I contrived to read undetected. Some of them, save in the lan- 
guage in which they were written, were almost identical with the 
books proper to the place. I remember perusing by stealth in 
this way, Dryden's " Virgil," and the '' Ovid" of Dryden and his 



HUGH MILLER. 183 

friends; while Ovid's own "Ovid," and Yirgil's own ''Virgil," 
lay beside me, sealed up in the fine old tongue, v/liich I was thus 
throwing away my only chance of acquiring. 

One morning, having the master's English rendering of the 
day's task well fixed in my memory, and no book of amusement 
to read, I began gossiping with my nearest class-fellow, a very 
tall boy, who ultimately shot up into a lad of six feet four, and 
who on most occasions sat beside me, as lowest in the form save 
one. I told him about the tall Wallace and his exploits; and so 
effectually succeeded in awakening his curiosity, that I had to 
communicate to him, from beginning to end, every adventure re- 
corded by the blind minstrel. My story-telling vocation once 
fairly ascertained, there was, I found, no stopping in my course. 
I had to tell all the stories I had ever heard or read; — all my 
father's adventures, so far as I knew them, and all my Uncle 
Sandy's, — with the story of Gulliver, and Philip Quarll,*'' and 
Robinson Crusoe,— of Sinbad, and Ulysses, and Mrs. Ratcliffe's 
heroine Emily, with, of course, the love-passages left out; and at 
length, after weeks and months of narrative, I found my available 
stock of acquired fact and fiction fairly exhausted. The demand 
on the part of my class-fellows was, however, as great and urgent 
as ever; and, setting myself, in the extremity of the case, to try 
my ability of original production, I began to dole out to them by 
the hour and the diet, long extempore biographies, which proved 
wonderfully popular and successful. My heroes were usually 
warriors like Wallace, and voyagers like Gulliver, and dwellers in 
desolate islands like Robinson Crusoe; and they had not unfre- 
quently to seek shelter in huge deserted castles, abounding in 
trap-doors and secret passages, like that of Udolpho." And finally, 
after much destruction of giants and wild beasts, and frightful 
encounters with magicians and savages, they almost invariably 
succeeded in disentombing hidden treasures to an enormous 
amount, or in laying open gold mines, and then passed a luxuri- 
ous old age, like that of Sinbad the Sailor, at peace with all 
mankind, in the midst of confectionery and fruits. The master 
had a tolerably correct notion of what was going on in the 



184 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

"heavy class; " — the stretched-out necks, and the heads clustered 
together, always told their own special story when I was engaged 
in telling mine; but, without hating the child he spared the rod, 
and simply did what he sometimes allowed himself to do,— be- 
stowed a nickname upon me. I was the Sennachie, he said; and 
as the Sennachie I might have been known so long as I remained 
under his charge, had it not been that, priding himself upon his 
Gaelic, he used to bestow upon the word the full Celtic pronuncia- 
tion, which, agreeing but ill with the Teutonic mouths of my 
schoolfellows, militated against its use; and so the name failed 
to take. With all my carelessness, I continued to be a sort of 
favorite with the master; and, when at the general Euglish les- 
son, he used to address to me little quiet speeches, vouchsafed to 
no other pupil, indicative of a certain literary ground common 
to us, on which the others had not entered. "That, Sir," he has 
said, after the class had just perused, in the school collection, a 
Tatler, or Spectator,—'' That, Sir, is a good paper; it 's an Addi- 
son;'^ or "That 's one of Steel's, Sir;" and on finding in my 
copy-book on one occasion, a page filled with rhymes, which I had 
headed " Poem on Care," he brought it to his desk, and, after 
reading it carefully over, called me up, and with his closed pen- 
knife, which served as a pointer, in the one hand, and the copy- 
book brought down to the level of my eyes in the other, began 
his criticism. "That 's bad grammar, Sir," he said, resting the 
knife-handle on one of the lines; "and here 's an ill-spelt word; 
and there 's another; and you have not at all attended to the 
punctuation; — but the general sense of the piece is good, — very 
good, indeed. Sir." And then he added, with a grim smile, 
"Ca/'e, Sir, is, I dare say, as you remark, a very bad thing; but 
you may safely bestow a little more of it on your spelling and 
your grammar." 

The school, like almost all the other grammar schools of the 
period in Scotland, had its yearly cock-fight, preceded by two 
holidays and a half, during which the boys occupied themselves 
in collecting and bringing up their cocks. And such always was 
the array of fighting birds mustered on the occasion, that the 



HUGH MILLER, 185 

day of the festival, from morning till night, used to be spent in 
fighting out the battle. For weeks after it had passed, the 
school-floor would continue to retain its deeply-stained blotches 
of blood, and the boys would be full of exciting narratives re- 
garding the glories of gallant birds, that had continued to fight 
until both their eyes had been picked out, or that, in the moment 
of victory, had dropped dead in the middle of the cock-pit. The 
yearly fight was the relic of a barbarous age; and, in at least one 
of its provisions, there seemed evidence that it was that of an in- 
tolerant age also; every pupil at school, without exception, had 
his name entered on the subscription-list as a cock-fighter, and 
was obliged to pay the master at the rate of twopence per head, 
ostensibly for leave to bring his birds to the pit; but amid the 
growing humanities of a better time, though the twopence con- 
tinued to be exacted, it was no longer imperative to bring the 
birds; and, availing myself of the liberty, I never brought any. 
Nor, save for a few minutes, on two several occasions, did I ever 
attend the fight. Had the combat been one among the boys 
themselves, I would readily enough have done my part, by meet- 
ing with any opponent of my years and standing; but I could 
not bear to look at the bleeding birds. And so I continued to 
pay my yearly sixpence, as a holder of three cocks,— the lowest 
sum deemed in any degree genteel,— but remained simply a ficti- 
tious or paper cock-fighter, and contributed in no degree to the 
success of the head-stock or leader, to whose party, in the general 
division of the school, it was my lot to fall. Neither, I mustadd, 
did I learn to take an interest in the sacrificial orgies of the ad- 
joining slaughter-house. A few of the chosen schoolboys w^ere 
permitted by the killers to exercise at times the privilege of knock- 
ing down a pig, and even, on rare occasions, to essay the stick- 
ing; but I turned with horror from both processes; and if I drew 
near at all, it was only when some animal, scraped and cleaned, 
and suspended from the beam, was in the course of being laid 
open by the butcher's knife, that I might mark the forms of the 
viscera, and the positions which they occupied. To my dislike of 
the annual cock-fight my uncles must have contributed. They 



186 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

were loud in their denunciation of the enormity ; and on one oc- 
casion, when a neighbor was unlucky enough to remark, in ex- 
tenuation, that the practice had been handed down to us by 
pious and excellent men, who seemed to see nothing wrong in it, 
I saw their habitual respect for the old divines give way, for at 
least a moment. Uncle Sandy hesitated under apparent excite- 
ment; but quick and fiery as lightning, Uncle James came to his 
rescue. " Yes, excellent men !" said my uncle, "but the excellent 
men of a rude and barbarous age; and in some parts of their 
character, tinged by its barbarity. For the cock-fight which 
these excellent men have bequeathed to us they ought to have 
been sent to Bridewell for a week, and fed upon bread and 
water." Uncle James was, no doubt, over hasty, and felt so a 
minute after; but the practice of fixing the foundation of ethics 
on a They themselves did it, much after the manner in which the 
schoolmen fixed the foundations of their nonsensical philosophy 
on a "JETe himself said it,^^ is a practice which, though not yet ex- 
ploded in even very pure Churches, is always provoking, and not 
quite free from peril to the worthies, whether dead or alive, in 
whose precedents the moral right is made to rest. In the class 
of minds represented among the people b3^ that of Uncle James, 
for instance, it would be much easier to bring down even the old 
divines, than to bring up cock-fighting. 

My native town had possessed, for at least an age or two pre- 
vious to that of my boyhood, its moiety of intelligent, book- 
consulting mechanics and tradesfolk; and as my acquaintance 
gradually extended among their representatives and descend- 
ants, I was permitted to rummage, in the pursuit of knowledge, 
delightful old chests and cupboards, filled with tattered anddusty 
volumes. The moiety of my father's librar^^ which remained to 
me, consisted of about sixty several works; my uncles possessed 
about a hundred and fifty more ; and there was a literary cabi- 
netmaker in the neighborhood, who had once actually composed 
a poem of thirty lines on the Hill of Cromarty, whose collection 
of books, chiefly poetical, amounted to from about eighty to a 
hundred. I used to be often at nights in the workshop of the cabi- 



HVGH MILLER. 187 

netmaker, and was sometimes privileged to hear liim repeat his 
poem. There was not much admiration of poets or poetry in 
the place; and my praise, though that of a very young critic, 
had always the double merit of being both ample and sincere. 
I knew the very rocks and trees - which his description em- 
braced—had heard the birds to which he referred, and seen the 
flowers; and as the hill had been of old a frequent scene of 
executions, and had borne the gallows of the sheriffdom on 
its crest, nothing could be more definite than the grave reference, 
in his opening line, to 

*' The verdant rising of the GnUo\v-\\\\\y 

And so I thought a very great deal of his poem, and what I 
thought I said ; and he, on the other hand, evidently regarded 
me as a lad of extraordinary taste and discernment for my years. 
There was another mechanic in the neighborhood,— a house- 
carpenter, who, though not a poet, was deeply read in books of 
all kinds, from the plays of Farquhar to the sermons of Flavel; 
and as both his father and grandfather, — the latter, by the way, 
a Porteous-mob man, and the former a personal friend of poor 
Fergusson, the poet,— had also been readers and collectors of 
books, he possessed a whole pressful of tattered, hard-working 
volumes, some of them very curious ones; and to me he liberally 
extended, what literary men always value, "the full freedom of 
the press." But of all my occasional benefactors in this way, by 
far the greatest was poor old Francie, the retired clerk and 
supercargo. 

Francie was naturally a man of fair talent and active curios- 
ity. Nor was he by any means deficient in acquirement. He 
wrote and figured well, and knew a good deal about at least the 
theory of business; and when articled in early life to a Cro- 
marty merchant and shopkeeper, it was with tolerably fair pros- 
pects of getting on in the world. He had, however, a certain 
infirmity of brain which rendered both talent and acquirement 
of but little avail, and that began to manifest itself very early. 
While yet an apprentice, on ascertaining that the way was clear, 



188 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

he used, though grown a tall lad, to bolt out from behind the 
counter into the middle of a green directly opposite, and there, 
joining in the sports of some group of youngsters, which the place 
rarely wanted, he would play out half a game at marbles, or 
honey-pots, or hy-spy, and when he saw his master or a customer 
approaching, bolt back again. The thing was not deemed seem- 
ly; but Francie, when spoken to on the subject, could speak as 
sensibly as any young person of his years. He needed relaxa- 
tion, he used to say, though he never suffered it to interfere with 
his proper business ; and where was safer relaxation to be found 
than among innocent children? This, of course, was eminently 
rational and virtuous. And so, when his term of apprenticeship 
had expired, Francie was dispatched, not without hope of success, 
to Newfoundland, — where he had relations extensively engaged 
in the fishing trade, — to serve as one of their clerks. He was 
found to be a competent clerk ; but unluckily there was but little 
known of the interior of the island at the time, and some of the 
places most distant from St. John's, such as the Bay and River 
of Exploits, bore tempting names; and so, after Francie had 
made many inquiries of the older inhabitants regarding what 
was to be seen amid the scraggy brushwood and broken rocks of 
the inner country, a morning came in which he was reported miss- 
ing at the office; and little else could be learned respecting him, 
than that at early dawn he had been seen setting out for the 
woods, provided with staff and knapsack. He returned in about 
a week, worn out and half-starved. He had not been so success- 
ful as he had anticipated, he said, in providing himself by the way 
with food, and so he had to turn back ere he could reach the 
point on which he had previously determined ; but he was sure 
he would be happier in his next journey. It was palpably unsafe 
to suffer him to remain exposed to the temptation of an unex- 
plored country; and as his friends and superiors at St. John's 
had just laden a vessel with fish for the Italian market during 
Lent, Francie was despatched with her as supercargo, to look 
after the sales, in a land of which every footbreadth had been 
familiar to men for thousands of years, and in which it was sup- 



HUGH MILLER. 189 

posed he would have no inducement to wander. Francie, how- 
ever, had read much about Italy ; and finding-, on landing at Leg- 
horn, that he was within a short distance of Pisa, he left ship and 
cargo to take care of themselves, and set out on foot to see the 
famous hanging tower, and the great marble cathedral. And 
tower and cathedral he did see: but it was meanwhile found that 
he wasnot quite suited for a supercargo, and hehad shortly after 
to return to Scotland, where his friends succeeded in establishing 
him in the capacity of clerk and overseer upon a small property 
in Forfarshire, which was farmed by the proprietor on what was 
then the newly-introduced modern system. He was acquainted, 
however, with the classical description of Glaramis Castle, in the 
letters of the poet Gray ; and after visiting the castle, he set out 
to examine the ancient encampment at Ardoch,— the Linduni of 
the Romans. Finally, all hopes of getting him settled at a dis- 
tance being given up by his friends, he had to fall back upon 
Cromarty, where he was yet once more appointed to a clerkship. 
The establishment with which he was now connected was a large 
hempen manufactory ; and it was his chief employment to register 
the quantities of hemp given out to the spinners, and the number 
of hanks of yarn into which they had converted it, when given in. 
He soon, however, began to take long walks; and the old women 
with their yarn, would be often found accumulated, ere his re- 
turn, by tens and dozens at the office door. At length, aftertak- 
ing a very long walk, indeed, for it stretched from near the 
opening to the head of the Cromarty Frith, a distance of about 
twenty miles, and included in its survey the antique tower of 
Kinkell and the old Castle of Craighouse, he was relieved from 
the duties of his clerkship, and left to pursue his researches un- 
disturbed, on a small annuity, the gift of his friends. He was 
considerably advanced in life ere I knew him, profoundly grave, 
and very taciturn, and though he never discussed politics, a 
mighty reader of the newspapers. '' Oh ! this is terrible," I have 
heard him exclaim, when on one occasion a snow storm had 
blocked up both the coast and the Highland roads for a week to- 
gether, and arrested the northward course of the mails,—" it is 



190 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

terrible to be left in utter ignorance of the public business of the 
country! " 

Francie, whom everyone called Mr. , to his face, and al- 
ways Francie when his back was turned, chiefly because it was 
known that he was punctilious on the point, and did not like the 
more familiar term, used in the winter evenings to be a regular 
member of the circle that met beside my Uncle James' worktable. 
And, chiefly through the influence, in the first instance, of my 
uncles,! was permitted to visit him in his own room,— a privilege 
enjoyed by scarce anyone else,— and even invited to borrow his 
books. His room— a dark and melancholy chamber, gray with 
dust— always contained a number of curious, but not very rare, 
things, which he had picked up in his walks,— prettily colored fun- 
gi,— vegetable monstrosities of the commoner kind, such as 
<<fause craws' nests," and flattened twigs of pine,— and with 
these, as the representatives of another department of natural 
science, fragments of semi-transparent quartz or of glittering 
feldspar, and sheets of mica a little above the ordinary size. But 
the charm of the apartment lay in its books. Francie was a 
book fancier, and lacked only the necessary wealth to be in the 
possession of a very pretty collection. As it was, he had some 
curious volumes; among others, a first-edition copy of the 
'< Nineteen Years' Travels of Wilham Lithgow," with an ancient 
wood-cut, representing the said William in the background, with 
his head brushing the skies, and, far in front, two of the tombs 
which covered the heroes of Ilium, barely tall enough to reach 
halfway to his knee, and of the length, in proportion to the size 
of the traveler, of ordinary octavo volumes. He had black-letter 
books, too, on astrology, and on the planetary properties of 
vegetables; and an ancient book on medicine, that recommended 
as a cure for the toothache a bit of the jaw of a suicide, well trit- 
urated; and, as an infallible remedy for the falhng- sickness, an 
ounce or two of the brains of a young man, carefull^^ dried over 
the fire. Better, however, than these, for at least my purposes, 
he had a tolerably complete collection of the British essayists, 
from Addison to Mackenzie, with the "Essays" and "Citizen of 



BVGH MILLER. 191 

the World" of Goldsmith; several interesting works of travels 
and voyages, translated from the French; and translations from 
the German, of Lavater, Zimmerman, and Klopstock. He had a 
good many of the minor poets, too ; and I was enabled to culti- 
vate, mainly from his collection, a tolerably adequate acquaint- 
ance with the wits of the reign of Queen Anne. Poor Francie 
was at bottom a kindly and honest man; but the more in- 
timately one knew him, the more did the weakness and broken- 
ness of his intellect appear. His mind was a labyrinth without 
a clue, in whose recesses there lay stored up a vast amount of 
book knowledge, that could never be found when wanted, and 
was of no sort of use to himself or anyone else. I got sufficiently 
into his confidence to be informed, under the seal of strict secre- 
cy, that he contemplated producing a great literary work, whose 
special character he had not quite determined, but which was to 
be begun a few years hence. And when death found him, at an age 
which did not fall short of the allotted three score and ten, the 
great unknown work was still an undefined idea, and had still to 
be begun. 

There were several other branches of my education going on 
at this time, outside the pale of the school, in which, though I 
succeeded in amusing myself, I was no trifler. The shores of 
Cromarty are strewed over with water-rolled fragments of the pri- 
mary rocks, derived chiefly from the west during the ages of 
the boulder clay ; and I soon learned to take a deep interest in 
sauntering over the various pebble beds when shaken up by 
recent storms, and in learning to distinguish their numerous 
components. But I was sadly in want of a vocabulary; and 
as, according to Cowper, ''the growth of what is excellent is 
slow," it was not until long after that I bethought me of the 
obvious enough expedient of representing the various species 
of simple rocks by certain numerals, and the compound ones by 
the numerals representative of each separate component, ranged, 
as in vulgar fractions, along a medial line, with the figures repre- 
sentative of the prevailing materials of the mass above, and 
those representative of the materials in less proportions below. 



192 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Though, however wholly deficient in the signs proper to repre- 
sent what I knew, I soon acquired a considerable quickness of eye 
in distinguishing the various kinds of rock, and tolerably defi. 
nite conceptions of the generic character of the porphyries, gran- 
ities, gneisses, quartz rocks, clay slates, and mica schists, which 
everywhere strewed the beach. In the rocks of mechanical origin 
I was at the time much less interested ; but in individual, as in 
general, history, mineralogy almost always precedes geology. 
I was fortunate enough to discover, one happy moi'ning, among 
the lumber and debris of old John Feddes' dark room, an antique- 
fashioned hammer, which had belonged, my mother told me, to 
old John himself more than a hundred years before. It was an 
uncouth sort of implement, with a haudle of strong black oak, 
and a short, compact head, square on the one face and oblong on 
the other. And though it dealt rather an obtuse blow, the 
temper was excellent, and the haft firmly set; and I went about 
with it, breaking into all manner of stones, with great perse^ 
verance and success. I found, in a large-grained granite, a few 
sheets of beautiful black mica, that when split exceedingly thin, 
and pasted between slips of mica of the ordinarj^ kind, made ad- 
mirably-colored eyeglasses, that converted the landscapes around 
into richly-toned drawings in sepia; and numerous crystals of 
garnet embedded in mica schist, that were, I was sure, identical 
with the stones set in a little gold brooch, the property of my 
mother. To this last surmise, however, some of the neighbors to 
whom I showed my prize demurred. The stones in my mother's 
brooch were precious stones, they said ; whereas, what I had 
found was merely a ''stone upon the shore." My friend, the 
cabinetmaker, went so far as to say that the specimen was 
but a mass of plum-pudding stone, and its dark-colored inclosures 
simply the currants; but then, on the other hand. Uncle Sandy 
took my view of the matter: the stone was not plum-pudding 
stone, he said : he had often seen plum-pudding stone in Eng- 
land, had known it to be a sort of rough conglomerate of various 
components ; whereas, my stone was composed of a finely-grained 
silvery substance, and the crystals which it contained were, he 



HVGH MILLER. 193 

was sure, gems like those in the brooch, and, so far as he could 
judge, real garnets. This was a great decision; and much en- 
couraged in consequence, I soon ascertained that garnets are 
by no means rare among the pebbles of the Cromarty shore. Nay, 
so mixed up are they with its sands even,— a consequence of the 
abundance of the mineral among the primary rocks of Ross,— 
that after a heavy surf has beaten the exposed beach of the neigh- 
boring hill, there may be found on it patches of comminuted gar- 
net, from one to three square yards in extent, that resemble 
at a little distance, pieces of crimson carpeting, and nearer at 
hand sheets of crimson bead-work, and of which almost every 
point and particle is a gem. From some unexplained circum- 
stance, connected apparently with the specific gravity of the 
substance, it separates in this style from the general mass, on 
coasts much beaten by the waves; but the garnets of these 
curious pavements, though so exceedingly abundant, are in every 
instance exceedingly minute. I never detected in them a frag- 
ment greatly larger than a pin head ; but it was always with 
much delight that I used to fling myself down on the shore beside 
some newl3^-discovered patch, and bethink me, as I passed my fin- 
gers along the larger grains, of the heaps of gems in Aladdin's 
cavern, or of Sinbad's valley of diamonds. 

The Hill o{ Cromarty formed at this time at once my true 
school and favorite playground ; and if my master did wink at 
times harder than master ought, when I was playing truant 
among its woods or on its shores, it was, I believe, whether he 
thought so or no, all for the best. My Uncle Sandy had, as I 
have already said, been bred a cartwright; but finding, on his re- 
turn, after his seven years' service aboard a man-of-war, that the 
place had cartwrights enough for all the employment, he applied 
himself to the humble but not unremunerative profession of a 
sawyer, and used often to pitch his saw pit, in the more genial 
seasons of the year, among the woods of the hill. I remember, 
he never failed setting it down in some pretty spot, sheltered 
from the prevailing winds under the lee of some fern-covered ris- 
ing ground, or some bosky thicket, and always in the near neigh- 

2 T. L.— 13 



194 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

borhood of a spring; and it used to be one of my most delightful 
exercises to find out for myself among the thick woods, in some 
holiday journey of exploration, the place of a newly-formed pit. 
With the saw pit as my base line of operations, and secure 
always of a share in Uncle Sandy's dinner, I used to make ex- 
cursions of discovery on every side,— now among the thicker 
tracks of wood, which bore among the town boys, from the twi- 
light gloom that ever rested in their recesses, the name of "the 
dungeons ; " and anon to the precipitous seashore, with its wild- 
cliffs and caverns. The Hill of Cromarty is one of a chain be- 
longing to the great Ben Nevis'*^ line of elevation ; and, though it 
occurs in a sandstone district, is itself a huge primary mass, up- 
heaved of old from the abyss, and composed chiefly of granitic 
gneiss and a red splintery hornstone. It contains also numer- 
ous veins and beds of hornblende rock and chlorite schist, and of 
a peculiar-looking granite, of which the quartz is white as milk, 
and the feldspar red as blood. When still wet by the receding 
tide, these veins and beds seem as if highly polished, and present 
a beautiful aspect; and it was always with great delight that, 
I used to pick my way among them, hammer in hand, and fill 
my pockets with specimens. 

There was one locality which I in especial loved. No path runs 
the way. On the one side an abrupt iron-tinged promontory, so 
remarkable for its human-like profile that it seems part of a 
half-buried sphynx, protrudes into the deep green water. On the 
other, — less prominent, for even at full tide the traveler can wind 
between its base and the sea,— there rises a shattered and ruin- 
ous precipice, seamed with blood-red ironstone, that retains on 
its surface the bright metallic gleam, and amid whose piles of 
loose and fractured rock one may still detect fragments of sta- 
lactite. The stalactite is all that remains of a spacious cavern, 
which once hollowed the precipice, but which, more than a hun- 
dred years before, had tumbled down during a thunderstorm, 
when filled with a flock of sheep, and penned up the poor crea- 
tures forever. The space between these headlands forms an ir- 
regular crescent of great height, covered with wood a-top, and 



HVGH MILLER. 195 

amid whose lichened crags, and on whose steep slopes, the haw- 
thorn, and bramble, and wild rasp, and rock strawberry, take root, 
with many a scraggy shrub and sweet wild flower besides; while 
along its base lie huge blocks of green hornblende, on a rude pave- 
ment of granitic gneiss, traversed at one point, for many rods, 
by a broad vein of milk-white quartz. The quartz vein formed 
my central point of attraction in this wild paradise. The white 
stone, thickly traversed by threads of purple and red, is a beau- 
tiful though unworkable rock ; and I soon ascertained that it is 
flanked by a vein of feldspar broader than itself, of a brick-red 
tint, and the red stone flanked, in turn, by a drab-colored vein of 
the same mineral, in which there occurs, in great abundance, 
masses of a homogeneous mica, — mica not existing in lamina, but, 
if I may use the term, as a sort of micaceous felt. It would al- 
most seem as if some gigantic experimenter of the old world had 
set himself to separate into their simple mineral components the 
granitic rocks of the hill, and that the three parallel veins were 
the results of his labor. Such, however, was not the sort of idea 
which they at this time suggested to me. I had read in Sir Walter 
Raleigh's voyage to Guinea the poetic description of that upper 
country in which the knight's exploration of the river Corale 
terminated, and where, amid lovely prospects of rich valleys, 
and wooded hills, and winding waters, almost every rock bore on 
its surface the yellow gleam of gold. True, according to the 
voyager, the precious metal was itself absent. But Sir Walter, 
on afterwards showing "some of the stones to a Spaniard of the 
Caraccas, was told by him they were el nmdre del ora,thatis, 
the mother of gold, and that the mine itself was farther in the 
ground." And though the quartz vein of the Cromarty Hill 
contained no metal more precious than iron, and but little even 
of that, it was, I felt sure, the " mother" of souiething very fine. 
As for silver, I was pretty certain I had found the "mother" of 
it, if not, indeed, the precious metal itself, in a cherty boulder, in- 
closing numerous cubes of rich galena; and occasional massesof 
iron-pyrites gave, as I thought, large promise of gold. But 
though sometimes asked, in humble irony, by the farm Kervants 



196 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

who came to load their carts with seaweed along the Cromarty 
beach, whether I was " getting siller in the stanes," I was so un- 
lucky as never to be able to answer their question in the affirma- 
tive. 

***■«•* * * 

Some of the wealthier tradesmen of the town, dissatisfied with 
the small progress which their boys were making under the 
parish schoolmaster, clubbed together and got a schoolmaster 
of their own ; but, though a rather clever young man, he proved 
an unsteady one, and regular in his irregularities, got diurnally 
drunk, on receiving the installments of his salary at term-days, 
as long as his money lasted. Getting rid of him, they procured 
another,— a licentiate of the Church, — who for some time promised 
well. He seemed steady and thoughtful, and withal a painstak- 
ing teacher; but coming in contact with some zealous Bap- 
tists, they succeeded in conjuring up such a cloud of doubt 
around him regarding the propriety of infant baptism, that 
both his bodily and mental health became affected by his per- 
plexities, and he had to resign his charge, and then, after a 
pause, during which the boys enjoyed a delightfully long vaca- 
tion, they got yet a third schoolmaster, also a licentiate, and a 
person of high, if not very consistent, religious profession, who 
was always getting into pecuniary difficulties, and always court- 
ing, though with but little success, wealthy ladies who, accord- 
ing to the poet, had "acres of charms." To the subscription 
school I was transferred, at the instance of Uncle James, who 
remained quite sure, notwithstanding the experience of the past, 
that I was destined to be a scholar. .And, invariably fortunate 
in my opportunities of amusement, the transference took place 
only a few weeks ere the better schoolmaster, losing health and 
heart in a labyrinth of perplexity, resigned his charge. I had 
little more than time enough to look about me on the new forms, 
and to renew, on a firmer foundation than ever, my friendship 
with my old associate of the cave, — who had been for the two 
previous years an inmate of the subscription school, and was 
now less under maternal control than before,— when on came 



HUGH MILLER. 197 

the long vacation; and for four happy months I had nothing 

to do. 
My amusements had undergone very Uttle change: I was even 

fonder of the shores and woods than ever, and better acquainted 
with the rocks and caves. A very considerable change, however, 
had taken place in the amusements of the schoolfellows, my con- 
temporaries, who were now from two to three years older than 
when I had been associated with them in the parish school. Hy- 
spy had lost its charms; nor was there much of its old interest 
for them in French and English; whereas, my rock excursions 
they came to regard as very interesting indeed. AVith the excep- 
tion of my friend of the cave, they cared little about rocks or 
stones; but they all liked brambles, and sloes, and craws-apples, 
tolerably well, and took great delight in assisting me to kindle 
fires in the caverns of the old coast line, at which we used to broil 
shellfish and crabs, taken among the crags and boulders of the 
ebb below, and roast potatoes, transferred from the fields of the 
hill above. There was one cave, an especial favorite with us, m 
which our fires used to blaze day after day for weeks together. It 
is deeply hollowed in the base of a steep ivy-mantled precipice of 
granitic gneiss, a full hundred feet in height; and bears on its 
smoothed sides and roof, and along its uneven bottom, -fretted 
into pot-like cavities, with large round pebbles in them ,-unequiy o- 
cal evidence that the excavating agent to which it owed its exist- 
ence had beenthe wild surf of this exposed shore. But for more than 
two thousand years wave had never reached it; the last general 
elevation of the land had raised it beyond the reach of the high- 
est stream-tides; and when my gang and I took possession of its 
twilight recesses, its stony sides were crusted with mosses and 
liverworts; and a crop of pale, attenuated, sickly-looking weeds, 
on which the sun had never looked in his strength, sprang thickly 
up over its floor. In the remote past it had been used as a sort 
of garner and thrashing-place by a farmer of the parish, named 
Marcus, who had succeeded in rearing crops of here and oats on 
two sloping plots at the foot of the cliffs in its immediate neigh- 
borhood; and it was known, from this circumstance, to my 



198 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

uncles and the older inhabitants of the town, as Marcus' Cave. 
My companions, however, had been chiefly drawn to it by a much 
more recent association. A poor Highland pensioner, — a sorely 
dilapidated relic of the French-American War, who had fought 
under General Wolfe in his day, — had taken a great fancy to the 
cave, and would fain have made it his home. He was ill at ease in 
his family ; — his wife was a termagant, and his daughter disreput- 
able; and, desirous to quit their society altogether, and live as a 
hermit among the rocks, he had made application to the gentle- 
man who tenanted the farm above, to be permitted to fit up the 
cave for himself as a dwelling. So bad was his English, however, 
that the gentleman failed to understand him; and his request 
was, as he believed, rejected, while it was in reality only not un- 
derstood. Among the younger folk, the cave came to be known, 
from the incident, as ''Eory Shingles' Cave;" and my com- 
panions were delighted to believe that they were living in it as 
Rory would have lived had his petition been granted. In the 
wild half-savage life which we led, we did contrive to provide for 
ourselves remarkably well. The rocky shores supplied us with 
limpets, periwinkles, and crabs, and now and then a himpfish; 
the rugged slopes under the precipices, with hips, sloes, and 
brambles; the broken fragments of wreck along the beach, and 
the wood above, furnished abundance of fuel; and as there were 
fields not half a mile way, I fear the more solid part of our diet 
consisted often of potatoes which we had not planted, and of 
peas and beans which we had not sown. One of our number con- 
trived to bring away a pot unobserved from his home; another 
succeeded in providing us with a pitcher; there was a good spring 
not two hundred yards from the cave's mouth, which supplied us 
with water; and, thus possessed of not merely all that nature 
requires, but of a good deal more, we contrived to fare sumptu- 
ously every day. It has been often remarked, that civilized man, 
when placed in circumstances at all favorable, soon learns to as- 
sume the savage. I shall not say that my companions or myself 
were particularly civilized in our previous state; but nothing 
could be more certain, than that during our long vacation we 



HUGH MILLER. 199 

became very happy, and tolerably perfect savages. The class 
which we attended was of a kind not opened in any of our ac- 
credited schools, and it might be difficult to procure even testi- 
monials in its behalf, easily procurable as these usually are; 
and yet, there were some of its lessons which might be conned 
with some little advantage, by one desirous of cultivating the 
noble sentiment of self-reliance, or the all-important habit of self- 
help. At the time, however, they appeared quite pointless enough, 
and the moral, as in the case of the continental apologue of Rey- 
nard the Fox, seemed always omitted. 

Our parties in these excursions used at times to swell out to 
tenor twelve,— at times to contract to two or three; but what 
they gained in quantity they always lost in quality, and became 
mischievous with the addition of every new member, in greatly 
more than the arithmetical ratio. When mostinnocent they con- 
sisted cf only a brace of members, — a warm-hearted, intelligent 
boy from the south of Scotland, who boarded with two elderly 
ladies of the place, and attended the subscription school; and 
the acknowledged leader of the band, who, belonging to the per- 
manent irreducible staff of the establishment, was never off duty. 
We used to be very happy, and not altogether irrational, in these 
little skeleton parties. My new friend was a gentle, tasteful boy, 
fond of poetry, and a writer of soft, simple verses in the old- 
fashioned pastoral vein, w^hich he never showed to anyone save 
myself; and we learned to love one another all the more, from 
the circumstance that I was of a somewhat bold, self-relying tem- 
perament, and he of a clinging, timid one. Two of the stanzas of 
a little pastoral, which he addressed to me about a twelve- 
month after this time, when permanently quitting the north 
country for Edinburgh, still remain fixed in my memory; and I 
must submit them to the reader, both as adequately representa- 
tive of the many others, their fellows, which have been lost, and 
of that juvenile poetry in general which " is written," according 
to Sir W^alter Scott, "rather from the recollection of what has 
pleased the author in others, than what has been suggested by 
his own imagination." 



200 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

*' To you, my poor sheep, I resign 

My colly, my crook, and my horn: 
To leave you, indeed, I repine, 

But I must away with the morn. 
New scenes shall evolve on my sight, 

The world and its follies be new ; 
But, ah ! can such scenes of delight 

Ere arise, as I witnessed with you?" 

Timid as he naturally was, he soon learned to abidein my com- 
pany terrors which most of my bolder companions shrank from 
encountering. I was fond of lingering in the cave until long 
after nightfall, especially in those seasons when the moon at full, 
or but a few days in her wane, rose out of the sea as the evening 
wore on, to light up the wild precipices of that solitary shore, 
and to render practicable our ascending path to the Hill above. 
And Finlay was almost the only one of my band who dared to 
encounter with me the terrors of the darkness. Our fire has often 
startled the benighted boatman as he came rowing round some 
rocky promontory, and saw the red glare streaming seaward 
from the cavern mouth, and partially lighting up the angry 
tumbling of the surf beyond; and excise-cutters have oftenerthan 
once altered their track in middle Frith, and come bearing 
towards the coast, to determine whether the wild rocks of Marcus 
were not becoming a wild haunt of smugglers. 

Immediately beyond the granite gneiss of the Hill there is a 
subaqueous deposit of the Lias formation, never yet explored 
by geologist, because never yet laid bare by the ebb; though 
every heavier storm from the sea tells of its existence, by toss- 
ing ashore fragments of its dark bituminous shale. I soon as- 
certained that the shale is so largely charged with inflammable 
matter as to burn with a strong flame, as if steeped in tar or oil, 
and that I could repeat with it the common experiment of pro- 
ducing gas by means of a tobacco pipe luted with clay. And hav- 
ing read in Shakspeare of a fuel termed '' sea coal," and unaware 
at the time that the poet merely meant coal brought to London 
by sea, I inferred that the inflammable shale <;-ast up from the 
depths of the Frith by the waves could not be other than the 



HUGH MILLER. 201 

veritable '' sea coal " which figured in the reminiscences o! Dame 
Quickly; and so, assisted by Finlay, who shared in the interest 
which 1 felt in the substance, as at once classical and an original 
discovery, I used to collect it in large quantities, and convert it 
into smoky and troubled fires, that ever filled our cavern with a 
horrible stench, and scented all the shores. Though unaware of 
the fact at the time, it owed its inflammability, not to vegetable, 
but to animal substance ; the tar which used to boil in it to the 
heat, like resin in a fagot of moss fir, was as strange a mixture as 
ever yet bubbled in witches' cauldron, — blood of pterodactyle and 
grease of ichthyosaur, — eye of belemnite and hood of nau tills; 
and we learned to delight in its very smell, all oppressive as that 
was as something wild, strange, and inexplicable. Once or twice I 
seemed ontheeveof a discovery ; in splitting the masses, I occasion- 
ally saw what appeared to be fragments of shells embedded in its 
substance ; and at least once I laid open a m3%sterious-looking scroll 
or volute, existing on the dark surface as a cream-colored film ; 
but though these organisms raised a temporary wonder, it was 
not until a later period that I learned to comprehend their true 
import, as the half-effaced but still decipherable characters of a 
marvelous record of the gray, dream-encircled past. 

With the docile Finlay as my companion, and left to work out 
my own will unchallenged, I was rarely or never mischievous. 
On the occasions, however, in which my band swelled out to ten 
or a dozen, I often experienced the ordinary evils of leadership, 
as known in all gangs and parties, civil and ecclesiastical; and 
was sometimes led, in consequence, to engage in enterprises 
which my better judgment condemned. I fain wish that among 
the other " Confessions " with which our literature is charged, we 
had the Z?072a ^c?e " Confessions of a Leader," with examples of 
the cases in which, though he seems to overbear, he is in reality 
overborne, and actually follows, though he appears to lead. 
Honest Sir William Wallace, though seven feet high, and a hero, 
was at once candid and humble enough to confess to the canons 
of Hexham, that his ''soldiers being evil-disposed men," 
whom he could neither "justify nor punish," he was able to 



202 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

protect women and Churchmen only so long as they '< abided in 
his sight." And, of course, other leaders, less tall and less heroic, 
must not unfrequently find themselves, had they but Wallace's 
magnanimity to confess the fact, in circumstances much akin to 
those of Wallace. When bee-masters get hold of queen-bees, 
they are able, by controlling the movements of these natural 
leaders of hives, to control the movements of the hives them- 
selves; and not unfrequently in Churches and States do there exist 
inconspicuous bee-masters, who, by influencing or controlling the 
leader bees, in reality influence and control the movements of the 
entire body, politic or ecclesiastical, over which these natural 
monarchs seem to preside. But truce with apology. Partly in 
the character of a leader, — partly being myself led, — I succeeded 
about this time in getting one of my larger parties into a toler- 
ably serious scrape. We passed every day, on our way to the 
cave, a fine large orchard, attached to the manor house of the 
Cromarty estate; and in ascending an adjacent hill over which 
our path lay, and which commands a bird's-eye view of the trim- 
kept walks and well-laden trees, there used not unfrequently to 
arise wild speculations among us regarding the possibility and 
propriety of getting a supply of the fruit, to serve as desserts to 
our meals of shellfish and potatoes. Weeks elapsed, however, 
and autumn was drawing on to its close, ere we could quite make 
up our minds regarding the adventure, when at length I agreed 
to lead; and, after arranging the plan of the expedition, we 
broke into the orchard under the cloud of night, and carried 
away with us whole pocketfiils of apples. They were all intoler- 
ably bad, — sour, hard, baking apples; for we had delayed the 
enterprise until the better fruit had been pulled ; but though 
they set our teeth on edge, and we flung most of them into the 
sea, we had " snatched," in the foray, what Gray well terms "a 
fearful joy," and had some thought of repeating it, merely for 
the sake of the excitement induced and the risk encountered, 
when out came the astounding fact that one of our number had 
"peached," and, in the character of king's evidence, betrayed 
his companions. 



HUGH MILLER. 203 

The factor of the Cromarty property had an orphan nephew, 
who formed at times a member of our gang, and who had 
taken a willing part in the orchard foray. He had also engaged, 
however, in a second enterprise of a similar kind wholly on his 
own account, of which we knew nothing. An outhouse pertain- 
ing to the dwelling in which he lodged, though itself situated out- 
side the orchard, was attached to another house inside the walls, 
which was employed by the gardener as a store-place for his ap- 
ples ; and finding an unsuspected crevice in the partition which 
divided the two buildings, somewhat resembling that through 
which Pyramus and "^hisbe made love of old in the city of 
Babylon, our comrade, straightway availing himself of so fair 
an opening, fell a-courting the gardener's apples. Sharpening 
the end of a long stick, he began harpooning, through the hole, 
the apple heap below; and though the hole was greatly too small 
for admitting the finer and larger specimens, and they, in conse- 
quence, fell back, disengaged from the harpoon, in the attempt 
to land them, he succeeded in getting a good many of the smaller 
ones. Old John Clark, the gardener, — far advanced in life at the 
time, and seeing too imperfectly to discover the crevice which 
opened high amid the obscurity of the loft,— was in a perfect maze 
regarding the evil influence that was destroying his apples. The 
harpooned individuals lay scattered over the floor by scores; 
but the agent that had dispersed and perforated them remained 
for weeks together an inscrutable mystery to John. At length, 
however, there came a luckless morning, in which our quondam 
companion lost hold, when busy at work, of the pointed stick; 
and when John next entered his storehouse, the guilty harpoon 
lay stretched across the harpooned apples. The discovery was 
followed up ; the culprit detected; and, on being closeted with liis 
uncle, the factor, he communicated not only the details of his 
own special adventure, but the particulars of ours also. And 
early next day there was a message sent us by a safe and secret 
messenger, to the effect that we would be all put in prison in the 
course of the week. 

We were terribly frightened ; so much so, that the strong point 



204 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

of our position— the double-dyed guilt of the factor's nephew- 
failed to occur to any of us ; and we looked for only instant in- 
carceration. I still remember the intense feeling of shame I used 
to experience every time I crossed my mother's door for the 
street, — the agonizing, all engrossing belief that everyone was 
looking at and pointing me out, — and the terror, when in my 
uncles',— akin to that of the culprit who hears from his box the 
footsteps of the returning jury, — that, having learned of my 
offense, they were preparing to denounce me as a disgrace to an 
honest family, on which, in the memory of man, no stain had 
rested before. The discipline was eminently wholesome, and I 
never forgot it. It did seem somewhat strange, however, that 
no one appeared to know anything about our misdemeanor : the 
factor kept our secret remarkably well ; but we inferred he was 
doing so in order to pounce upon us all the more effectually; 
and, holding a hasty council in the cave, we resolved that, 
quitting our homes for a few Aveeks, we should live among the 
rocks till the storm that seemed rising should have blown by. 

Marcus' Cave was too accessible and too well known; but my 
knowledge of the locality enabled me to recommend to my lads 
two other caves in which I thought we might be safe. The one 
opened in a thicket of furze, some forty feet above the shore; 
and, though large enough within to contain from fifteen to 
twenty men, it presented outside much the appearance of a fox- 
earth, and was not known to half-a-dozen people in the country. 
It was, however, damp and dark; and we found that we could not 
venture on lighting a fire in it without danger of suffocation. It 
was pronounced excellent, however, as a temporary place of 
concealment, were the search for us to become very hot. The 
other cavern was wide and open; but it was a wild, ghostly- 
looking place, scarcely once visited from one twelvemonth's 
end to another; its floor was green with mould, and its 
ridgy walls and roof bristled over with slim pale stalactites, which 
looked like the pointed tags that roughen a dead dress. It was 
certain, too, that it was haunted. Marks of a cloven foot might 
be seen freshly impressed on its floor, which had been produced 



HUGH MILLER. 205 

eitherby astray go at, or by something worse; and the fewboj^sto 
whom its existence and character were known used to speak of it 
under their breath as "the Devil's Cave." My lads did at first 
look round them, as we entered, with an awe-struck and discon- 
solate expression ; but falling busily to work among the cliffs, we 
collected large quantities of withered grass and fern for bedding, 
and, selecting the drier and less exposed portions of the floor, 
soon piled up for ourselves a row of little lairs, formed in a sort 
of half-way style between that of the wild beast and the gipsy, 
on which it would have been possible enough to sleep. We selected, 
too, a place for our fire, gathered a little heap of fuel, and se- 
creted in a recess, for ready use, our Marcus' Cave pot and pitch- 
er, and the lethal weapons of the gang, which consisted of an 
old bayonet so corroded with rust that it somewhat resembled a 
three-edged saw, and an old horseman's pistol tied fast to the 
stock by cobbler's ends, and with lock and ramrod awanting. 
Evening surprised us in the middle of our preparations; and as 
the shadows fell dark and thick my lads began to look most un- 
comfortably around them. At length they fairly struck work; 
there was no use, they said, for being in the Devil's Cave so late, — 
no use, indeed, for being in it at all, until we were made sure the 
factor did actually intend to imprison us; and, after delivering 
themselves to this effect, they fairly bolted, leaving Finlay and 
mj^self to bring up the rear at our leisure. My well-laid plan, 
was, in short, found unworkable, from the inferior qualitj^ of my 
materials. I returned home with a heavy heart, somewhat grieved 
that I had not confided my scheme to only Finlay, who could, I 
ascertained, do braver things, with all his timidity, than the 
bolder boys, our occasional associates. And yet, when, in pass- 
ing homewards through the dark lonely woods of the Hill, I be- 
thought me of the still deeper solitude and gloom of the haunted 
cave far below, and thought further, that at that very moment the 
mysterious being with the cloven feet might be traversing its silent 
floor, I felt m}' blood run cold, and at once leaped to the conclu- 
sion that, save for the disgrace, a cave with an evil spirit in it 
could be not a great deal better than a prison. Of the prison, 



^06 ' THE TEACHER IN LITERATimE. 

however, we heard no more; though I never forgot the grim but 
precious lesson read me by the factor's threat; and from that 
time till the present,— save now and then, by inadvertently ad- 
mitting into my newspaper a paragraph written in too terse a 
style by some good man in the provinces, against some very bad 
man, his neighbor, — I have not been fairly within wind of the law. 
I would, however, seriously advise such of my young friends as 
may cast a curious eye over these pages, to avoid taking any 
such lesson as mine at firsthand. One half-hour of the mental 
anguish which I at this time experienced, when I thought of my 
mother and uncles, and the infamy of a prison, would have vastly 
more than counterbalanced all that could have been enjoyed from 
banqueting on apples, even had they been thoseof the Hesperides 
or of Eden, instead of being, what they were in this case, green 
masses of harsh acid, alike formidable to teeth and stomach. 
I must add, in justice to my friend of the Doocot Cave, that, 
though an occasional visitor at Marcus, he had prudently 
avoided getting into this scrape. 

Our long vacation came at length to an end, by the appoint- 
ment of a teacher to the subscription school ; but the arrange- 
ment was not the most profitable possible for the pupils. It 
was an ominous circumstance, that we learned in a few days to 
designate the new master by a nickname, and that the name 
stuck,— a misfortune which almost never befalls the truly 
superior man. He had, however, a certain dash of cleverness 
about him ; and, observing that I was of potent influence among 
my schoolfellows, he set himself to determine the grounds on 
which my authority rested. Copy and arithmetic books, in 
schools in which there was liberty, used in those ancient times to 
be charged with curious revelations. In the parish school, for 
instance, which excelled, as I have said, every other school in the 
world in its knowledge of barks and carvels, it was not uncom- 
mon to find a book which, when opened at the right end, pre- 
sented only copy lines or arithmetical questions, that when 
opened at the wrong one, presented only ships and boats. And 
there were cases on record in which, on the grand annual exami- 



HVGH MILLER. ^Of 

nation day that heralded the vacation, the worthy parish min- 
ister, by beginning to turn overtheleaves of some exhibited book 
at the reverse end, found himself engaged, wlien expecting only 
the questions of Cocker, or the ship lines of Butterworth, amid 
whole fleets of smacks, frigates, and brigantines. My new 
master professionally acquainted with this secret property of 
arithmetic and copy books, laid hold of mine, and, bringing 
them to his desk, found them charged with very extraordinary 
revelations indeed. The blank spaces were occupied with deplor- 
ably scrabbled couplets and stanzas, blent with occasional re- 
marks in rude prose, that dealt chiefly with natural phenomena. 
One note, for instance, which the master took the trouble of de- 
ciphering, referred to the supposed fact, familiar as a matter of 
sensation to boys located on the seacoast, that during the 
bathing season the water is warmer in windy days, when the 
waves break high, than during dead calms ; and accounted for 
it (I fear, not very philosophically) on the hypothesis that the 
"waves, by slapping against each other, engender heat, as heat 
may be engendered by clapping the hands." The master read 
on, evidently with much difficulty, and apparently with consid- 
erable skepticism : he inferred that I had been borrowing, not in- 
venting; though where such prose and such verse could have 
been borrowed, and, in especial, such grammar and such spell- 
ing, even cleverer men than he might well have despaired of ever 
finding out. And in order to test my powers, he proposed fur- 
nishing me with a theme on which to write. "Let us see," he 
said, "let us see: the dancing-school ball comes on here next 
week ;— bring me a poem on the dancing-school ball." The sub- 
ject did not promise a great deal ; but, setting myself to work in 
the evening, I produced half a dozen stanzas on the ball, which 
were received as good, in evidence that I actually could rhyme; 
and for some weeks after I was rather a favorite with the new 
master. 

I had, however, ere now become a wild insubordinate boy, and 
the 'only school in which I could properly be taught was that 
world-wide school which awaited me, in which Toil and Hardship 



208 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

are the severe but noble teachers. I got into sad scrapes. Quar- 
reling, on one occasion, with a boy of my own standing, we ex- 
changed blows across the form; and when called up for trial and 
punishment, the fault was found to attach so equally to both 
sides, that the same number oi palmies, well laid on, were awarded 
to each. I bore mine, however, like a North American Indian, 
whereas, my antagonist began to howl and cry; and I could not 
resist the temptation of saying to him, in a whisper that un- 
luckily reached the ear of the master, " Ye big blubbering block- 
head, take that for a drubbing from me." I had, of course, to 
receive a few palmies additional for the speech; but then, "who 
cared for that?" The master, however, "cared" considerably 
more for the offense than I did for the punishment. And in 
a subsequent quarrel with another boy, — a stout and somewhat 
desperate mulatto, — I got into a worse scrape still, of which he 
thought still worse. The mulatto, in his battles, which were 
many, had a trick, when in danger of being overmatched, of 
drawing his knife; and in our affair — the necessities of the fight 
seeming to require it — he drew his knife upon me. To his horror 
and astonishment, however, instead of running off, I immediately 
drew mine, and, quick as lightning, stabbed him in the thigh. He 
roared out in fright and pain, and, though more alarmed than 
hurt, never after drew knife upon a combatant. But the value of 
the lesson which I gave was, like most other very valuable things, 
inadequately appreciated; and it merely procured for me the 
character of being a dangerous boy. I had certainly reached 
a dangerous stage; but it was mainly myself that was in jeop- 
ardy. There is a transition time in which the strength and inde- 
pendence of the latent man begin to mingle with the willfulness 
and indiscretion of the mere boy, which is more perilous than any 
other, and in which many more downward careers of recklessness 
and folly begin, that end in wreck and ruin, than in all the other 
years of life which intervene between childhood and old age. 
The growing lad should be wisely and tenderly dealt with at this 
critical stage. The severity that would fain compel the implicit 
submission yielded at an earlier period, would probably succeed, 



HUGH MILLER. 209 

if his character was a strong one, in insuring but his ruin. It is 
at this transition stage that boys run off to sea from their 
parents and masters, or, when tall enough, enlist in the army for 
soldiers. The strictly orthodox parent, if more severe than wise, 
succeeds occasionally in driving, during this crisis, his son into 
poverty, or infidelity; and the sternly moral one, in landing bis 
in utter profligacy. But, leniently and judiciously dealt with, the 
dangerous period passes; in a few years, at most,— in some in- 
stances in even a few months, — the sobriety incidental to a fur- 
ther development of character ensues, and the wild boy settles 
down into a rational young man. 

It so chanced, however, that in what proved the closing scene 
in my term of school attendance, I was rather unfortunate than 
guilty. The class to which I now belonged read an English les- 
son every afternoon, and had its rounds of spelling; and in these 
last I acquitted myself but ill; partly from the circumstance that 
I spelt only indifferently, but still more from the further circum- 
stance, that, retaining strongly fixed in my memory the broad 
Scotch pronunciation acquired at the dames' school, I had to 
carry on in my mind the double process of at once spelling the 
required word, and of translating the old sounds of the letters of 
which it was composed into the modern ones. Nor had I been 
taught to break the words into syllables ; and so, when required 
one evening to spell the word "awfal,^' with much deliberation, 
— for I had to translate, as I went on, the letters a-w and u, — I 
spelt it word for word, without break or pause, as a-w-f-u-1. 
''No," said the master; "a-w, aw, f-u-1, awful; spell again.'' 
This seemed preposterous spelling. It was sticking in an a, as 
I thought, into the middle of the word, where, I was sure, none 
bad a right to be ; and so I spelt it as at first. The master rec- 
ompensed my supposed contumacy with a sharp cut athwart" 
the ears with his taws ; and again demanding the spelling of the 
word, I yet again spelt it as at first. But on receiving a second 
cut, I refused to spell it any more; and, determined on overcom- 
ing my obstinacy, he laid hold of me, and attempted throwing 
me down. As wrestling had, however, been one of our favorite 

2 T. L.— 14 



210 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Marcus' Cave exercises, and as few lads of my inches wrestled bet- 
ter than I, the master, though a tall and tolerably robust fellow, 
found the feat considerably more difficult than he could have 
supposed. We swayed from side to side of the schoolroom, now 
backwards, now forwards, and for a full minute it seemed to be 
rather a moot point on which side the victory was to incline. 
At length, however, I was tripped over a form ; and as the master 
had to deal with me, not as master usually deals with pupil, but 
as one combatant deals with another, whom he has to beat into 
submission, I was mauled in a way that filled me with aches and 
bruises for a full month thereafter. I greatly fear that, had I 
met the fellow on a lonely road five years subsequent to our en- 
counter, when I had become strong enough to raise breast-high 
the ''great lifting stone of the Dropping Cave," he would have 
caught as sound a thrashing as he ever gave to little boy or girl 
in his life; but all I could do at this time was to take down my 
cap from off the pin, when the affair had ended, and march 
straight out of school. And thus terminated my school educa- 
tion. Before night I had avenged myself, in a copy of satiric 
verses, entitled" The Pedagogue," which— as they had some little 
cleverness in them, regarded as the work of a boy, and as the 
known eccentricities of their subject gave me large scope — oc- 
casioned a good deal of merriment in the place; and of the verses 
a fair copy, written out by Finlay, was transmitted through the 
postofflce to the pedagogue himself. But the only notice he 
ever took of them was incidentally, in a short speech made to the 
copyist a few days after. " I see, Sir," he said,—'' I see you still 
associate with that fellow Miller; perhaps he will make you a 
poet !" "I had thought, Sir," said Finlay, very quietly, in reply, 
" that poets were born, — not made." 

As a specimen of the rhyme of this period, and as in some de- 
gree a set-off against my drubbing, which remains till this day an 
unsettled score, I submit my pasquinade to the reader. 



HVGH MILLER. 211 

THE PEDAGOGUE. 

With solemn mien and pious air, 

S— k — r attends each call of grace ; 
Loud eloquence bedecks his })ra.ver, 

And formal sanctity his face. 

All good ; but turn the other side, 
And see the smirking beau displayed; 
The pompous strut, exalted air, 
And all that markes the fop, is there. 

In character we seldom see 

Traits so diverse meet and agree: 

Can the affected mincing trip, 

Exalted brow, and pride-pressed lip, 

In strange incongruous union meet. 

With all that stamps the hypocrite? 

We see they do : but let us scan 

Those secret springs which move the man. 

Though now he wields the knotty birch, 
His better hope lies in the Church : 
For this the sable robe he wears, 
For this in pious guise appears. 
But then, the weak will cannot hide 
Th' inherent vanity and pride; 
And thus he acts the coxcomb's part. 
As dearer to his poor vain heart : 
Nature's born fop ! a saint by art ! 

But hold, he wears no fopling'^s dress ; 
Each seam, each thread, the e3'e can trace 
His garb all o'er; — the eye, though true, 
Time -blanch' d, displays a fainter hue : 
Dress forms the fopling's better part; — 
Reconcile this and prove your art. 

"Chill penury represses pride;" — 
A maxim by the wise denied; 
For 'tis alone tame plodding souls. 
Whose spirits bend when it controls, — 
Whose lives run on in one dull same. 
Plain honesty their highest aim. 



212 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

With him it merely can repress — 
Tailor o'er-cowed — the pomp of dress; 
His spirit, unrepressed, can soar 
High as e'er folly rose before; 
Can fly pale stndy, learn'd debate, 
And ape proud fashion's idle state; 
Yet fails in that engaging grace 
That lights the practis'd courtier's face. 
His weak affected air we mark, 
And, smiling, view the would-be spark; 
Complete in every act and feature, — 
An ill-bred, silly, awkward creature. 

My school days fairly over, a life of toil frowned full in front of 
me; but never yet was there halfgrown lad less willing to take up 
the man and lay down the boy. My set of companions was fast 
breaking up ;— my friend of the Doocot Cave was on the eve of 
proceeding to an academy in a neighboring town; Finlay had 
received a call from the south, to finish his education in a sem- 
inary on the banks of the Tweed; one Marcus' Cave lad was pre- 
paring to go to sea ; another to learn a trade ; a third to enter a 
shop; the time of dispersal was too evidently at hand; and, tak- 
ing counsel one day together, we resolved on constructing some- 
thing — we at first knew not what— that might serve as a monu- 
ment to recall to us, in after years, the memory of our early pas- 
times and enjoyments. The common schoolbook story of the 
Persian shepherd, who, when raised by his sovereign to high 
place in the empire, derived his chief pleasure from contemplating, 
in a secret apartment, the pipe, crook, and rude habiliments of 
his happier days, suggested to me that we also should have our 
secret apartment, in which to store up, for future contemplation, 
our bayonet and pistol, pot and pitcher; and I recommended that 
we should set ourselves to dig a subterranean chamber for that 
purpose among the woods of the hill, accessible, like the mysteri- 
ous vaults of our storybooks, by a trapdoor. The proposalwas 
favorably received ; and, selecting a solitary spot among the trees 
as a proper site, and procuring spade and mattock, we began to 
dig. 



HUGH MILLER. 213 

Soon passing through the thin crust of vegetable mould, we 
found the red boulder clay beneath exceedingly stiff and hard ; 
but day after day saw us perseveringly at work; and we suc- 
ceeded in digging a huge square pit, about six feet in length and 
breadth, and fully seven feet deep. Fixing four upright posts in 
the corners, we lined our apartment with slender spars nailed 
closely together ; and we had prepared for giving it a massive 
roof of beams formed of fallen trees, and strong enough to bear 
a layer of earth and turf from a foot to a foot and a half in 
depth, with a little opening for the trapdoor; when we found, 
one morning, on pressing onwards to the scene of our labors, 
that we were doggedly tracked by a hoard of boys considerably 
more numerous than our own party. Their curiosity had been 
excited, like that of the Princess Nekayah in Rasselas, by the 
tools which we carried, and by "seeing that we had directed our 
walk every day to the same point; " and in vain, by running and 
doubling, by scolding and remonstrating, did we now attempt 
shaking them off. I saw. that, were we to provoke a general 
melee, we could scarce expect to come off victors; but deem- 
ing myself fully a match for their stoutest boy, I stepped out 
and challenged him to come forward and fight me. He hesi- 
tated, looked foolish, and refused, but said he would readily 
fight with any of my party except myself. 1 immediately named 
my friend of the Doocot Cave, who leaped out with a bound to 
meet him ; but the boy, as I had anticipated, refused to fight him, 
also; and, observing the proper effect produced, I ordered my 
lads to march forward; and from an upper slope of the hill we 
had the satisfaction of seeing that our pursurers, after lingering 
for a little while on the spot on which we had left them, turned 
homewards, fairly cowed, and pursued us no more. But, alas! 
on reaching our secret chamber, we ascertained, by marks all too 
unequivocal, that it was to be secret no longer. Some rude 
hand had torn down the wooden lining, and cut two of the posts 
half through with a hatchet; and on returning disconsolately to 
the town, we ascertained that Johnstone, the forester, had just 
been there before us, declaring that some atrociously wicked 



214 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

persons — for whose apprehension a proclamation was to be in- 
stantly issued— had contrived a diabolical trap, which he had 
just discovered, for maiming the cattle of the gentleman, his em- 
ployer, who farmed the Hill. Johnstone was an old Forty- 
Second man, who had followed Wellington over the larger 
part of the Peninsula ; but though he had witnessed the storm- 
ing and sack of St. Sebastian, and a great many other bad 
things, nothing had he ever seen on the Peninsula, or anywhere 
else, he said, half so mischievous as the cattle trap. We, of 
course, kept our own secret ; and as we all returned under the 
cloud of night, and with heavy hearts filled up our excavation 
level with the soil, the threatened proclamation was never issued. 
Johnstone, however, who had been watching my motions for a 
considerable time before, and whom, as he was a formidable fel- 
low, very unlike any of the other foresters, I had been sedulously 
watching in turn,— had no hesitation in declaring that I, and I 
only, could be the designer of the cattle trap. I had acquainted 
myself in books, he said, with the mode of entrapping by pitfalls 
wild beasts in the forests abroad; and my trap for the Colonel's 
cattle was, he was certain, a result of my book-acquired knowl- 
edge. 

I was one day lounging in front of my mother's dwelling, when 
up came Johnstone to address me. As the evidence regarding 
the excavation had totally broken down, I was aware of no spe- 
cial offense at that time that could have secured for me such a 
piece of attention, and inferred that the old soldier was laboring 
under some mistake; but Johnstone's address soon evinced that 
he was not in the least mistaken. He wished to be acquainted 
with me, he said. ''It was all nonsense for us to be bothering 
one another, when we had no cause of quarrel.'' He used oc- 
casionally to eke out his pension, and his scanty allowance as 
forester, by catching a basket of fish for himself from off the 
rocks of the Hill ; and he had just discovered a projecting rock, at 
the foot of a tall precipice, which would prove, he was sure, one 
of the best fishing platforms in the Frith. But then, in the ex- 
isting state, it was wholly inaccessible. He was, however, of 



HUGH MILLER. 215 

opinion that it was possible to lay it open by carrying a path 
adown the shelving face of the precipice. He had seen Welling- 
ton address himself to quite as desperate-looking matters in the 
Peninsula, and, were I but to assist him, he was sure, he said, we 
could construct between us the necessary path. The undertak- 
ing was one wholly according to my own heart; and next morn- 
ing Johnstone and I were hard at work on the giddy brow of the 
precipice. It was topped by a thick bed of boulder clay, itself— 
such was the steepness of the slope — almost a precipice; but a 
series of deeply-cut steps led us easily adown the bed of clay ; and 
then a sloping shelf, which, with much labor, we deepened and 
flattened, conducted us not unsafely some five-and-twenty or 
thirty feet along the face of the precipice proper. A second series 
of steps, painfully scooped out of the living rock, and which 
passed within a few yards of a range of herons' nests perched on 
a hitherto inaccessible platform, brought us down some five-and- 
twenty or thirty feet more; but then we arrived at a sheer descent 
of about twenty feet, at which Johnstone looked rather blank, 
though, on my suggesting a ladder, he took heart again, and 
cutting two slim taper trees in the wood above, we flung them 
over the precipice into the sea; and then fishing them up with a 
world of toil and trouble, we squared and bore them upwards, 
and, cutting tenons for them in the hard gneiss, we placed them 
against the rock front, and nailed over them a line of steps. The 
precipice beneath sloped easily on to the fishing rock, and so a 
few steps more completed our path. I never saw a man more 
delighted than Johnstone. As being lighter and more active 
than he, — for, though not greatly advanced in life, he was con- 
siderably debilitated by severe wounds,— I had to take some of 
the more perilous parts of the work on myself. I had cut the 
tenons for the ladder with a rope round my waist, and had re- 
covered the trees flung into the sea by some adroit swimming; 
and the old soldier became thoroughly impressed with the con- 
viction that my proper sphere was the army. I was already five 
feet three, he said ; in little more than a twelvemonth I should be 
five feet seven ; and were I then but to enlist, and to keep from 



216 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

the '' drop drink/'— a thing which he never could do,— I would, he 
was certain, rise to be a sergeant. In brief, such were the terms 
on which Johnstone and I learned to live ever after, that, had 1 
constructed a score of traps for the Colonel's cattle, I believe he 
would have winked at them all. Poor fellow! he got into diffi- 
culties a good many years after, and, on the accession of the 
Whigs to power, mortgaged his pension, and emigrated to 
Canada. Deeming the terms hard, however, as he well might, he 
first wrote a letter to his old commander, the Duke of Wellington, — 
I holding the pen for him, — in which, in the hope that their strin- 
gency might be relaxed in his behalf, he stated both his services 
and his case. And promptly did the Duke reply, in an essentially 
kind holograph epistle, in which, after stating that he had no in- 
fluence at the time with the Ministers of the Crown, and no means 
of getting a relaxation of their terms in behalf of anyone, he 
'' earnestly recommended William Johnstone, first, not to seek a 
provision for himself in Canada, unless he were able-bodied, and 
fit to provide for himself in circumstances of extreme hardship; 
and, second, on no account to sell or mortgage his pension." 
But the advice was not taken; — Johnstone did emigrate to 
Canada, and did mortgage his pension; and I fear— though I 
failed to trace his after-history— that he suffered in consequence. 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

His writing from the first could be distinguished from the ordinary 
productions of boyhood. A continuity of idea, an indefinable grace and 
freshness marked his performances. They were never verbose or bom- 
bastic. At no period in his life did he suffer from a flux of w^ords; but, 
boy and man, he had a felicitous knack of fitting words into their right 
places, avoiding jerkiness and inequality. In verse, he lacked the pas- 
sionate intensity required for true rhythmic movement, but he had a fine 
sense of cadence and modulation in prose. 

His first productions were poems which were offered for publication, 
but were rejected. Piqued by these failures, he resolved to see himself in 
print, and in 1829 appeared his first volume " Poems Written in the 
Leisure Hours of a Journeyman Mason." This work was the beginning 
of his fame. Some eloquent letters on the herring fishery extended his 
reputation and good judges detected in these the mint-mark of genius. 
His first prose volume was " Scenes and Legends of Cromarty," published 
there in 1835. In this book a geological chapter excited great interest 



HUGH MILLER. 217 

among scientific readers. He was convinced that his road to the stars was 
not through poetry, for he lacked in the purely literary materials ; but 
during his career as apprentice and Journeyman mason he had accumu- 
lated a vast store of the particular information belonging to the 
geologist. He now addressed himself with the concentrated energy of 
mature manhood to geological reading and geological researches. His 
chief master was LyelP'* and the principle scone of his own investigations 
was the Cromarty district. He had entered into correspondence with 
such men as Murchison and Agassiz, and side by side, with the patriotic 
and religious enthusiasm that burned within him thereglowed not indeed 
a stronger but a more gentle and perhaps a dearer enthusiasm for the 
science of the rocks. In the periodical which he edited, as early as Sep- 
tember, IS-tO, there appeared articles entitled the "Old Red Sandstone," 
which attracted the immediate and eager attention of the great scientists 
of the day and won such encomiums that one of them said, "I would give 
my left hand to possess such powers of description as this man." From 
these articles grew the remarkable book " The Old Red Sandstone." Pass- 
ing from his "Scenes and Legends" to this book one sees that the spirit of 
the author has become more exultant, his touch at once stronger and 
more free. His next work was " First Impressions of England and its 
People," the fruit of eight weeks' wandering, arranged in the leisure 
hours of a hard-worked editor. This work is noted for its grace and 
gentleness, the classic moderation of its tone, the quiet vivacity and 
freshness of its observation and the sense and sentiment and justice of 
its criticism. The autobiographical volume from which we have taken 
the following selections, "My Schools and Schoolmasters," ranks 
among the finest masterpieces of its kind in the English language. His 
other two works, "The Footsteps of the Creator" and "The Testimony 
of the Rocks" ar6 polemical works in defense of theism and revelation. 
In his long debate with Darwin on the Origin of Species, he strenuously 
maintained the doctrine of theism and specific creation. His complete 
works, including his "Life and Letters," have been published in twenty 
volumes. 

Hugh Miller is to be especially praised for the sweetness and classical 
animation of his style and the lovely views he gives of nature's facts. In 
an age prodigal of genius, yet abounding also in extravagance, glare 
and bombast, the self-educated stonemason wrote with the calmness and 
moderation of Addison. His powerful imagination was disciplined to 
draw Just those lines and to lay on Just those colors which should reani- 
mate the past. In his glowing pages", the fossil remains seem to live and 
flourish, to fly, swim, or gambol, or to shoot up in vegetative pro- 
fusion and splendor as in the primal dawn of creation. 

—Peter Bayne, 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 

1812-189-. 

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher (Mrs. Harriet Beech er St owe), author 
of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was born in Litchfield, Ct., June 14, 1812. In 
her childhood she received careful training both at home and at the 
academy of her native village. Her fondness for writing, developed 
early in life, amounted almost to a passion. When she was but twelve 
years of age, at an annual exhibition of the academy, she surprised her 
friends by the production of an essay on the negative side of the ques- 
tion, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be proved by the Light of 
Nature? " On leaving the academy she joined her sister Catherine at her 
school in Hartford— first as pupil and afterwards as teacher. There she 
remained until the appointment of their father to the presidency of Lane 
Theological Seminary, when the two daughters established a school at 
Cincinnati, Ohio. Here Harriet saw much of the practical workings of 
the institution of slavery, and became acquainted with many of those 
scenes and incidents which she afterwards so graphically described in her 
antislavery writings. 

In 1836 she married the Rev. C. E. Stowe, a theological professor in 
Lane Seminary, with whom she subsequently removed to Brunswick, Me., 
and in 1849 she issued her first work, " TheMayflower, or Sketches of the 
Descendants of the Pilgrims." In 1851 she engaged to contribute a story 
to " The National Era," an antislavery paper published at Washington, 
D. C, the result of which was the production of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
unquestionably the most famous novel ever issued in America. "Uncle 
Tom> Cabin," besides being translated into manyforeign languages, has 
been repeatedly dramatized and represented upon the stage with great 
success. Probably more than a million copies of this work have been 
printed in the English language, a large number of which have circulated 
in the British dominions. It is said that the library of the British Mu- 
seum contains copies of thirty-five different editions in English. In 1854 
appeared her "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," a charming volume 
of letters from Europe, where she had spent the preceding year. 

Mrs. Stowe's other principal works are : " Dred, a Tale of the Dismal 
Swamp" (1856) ; "The Minister's Wooing" (1859) ; " The Pearl of Orr's 
Island " (1862) ; "Agnes of Sorrento " (1862) ; " Oldtown Folks, a story 
(218) 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 219 

of New England Life" (1869); ''Lady Byron Vindicated" (1870), a 
work which many have thought, even had its monstrous allegations 
been true, should never certainly have seen the light; "My Wife and I" 
(1871); "Poganuc People" (1878). Of late Mrs. Stowe has resided 
in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Topsy's Education. 

(From "Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe.) 

Whoever has traveled in the New England States will remem- 
ber, in some cool village, the large farm house, with its clean- 
swept grassy yard, shaded by the dense and massive foliage of 
the sugar maple; and remember the air of order and stillness, of 
perpetuity and unchanging repose, that seemed to breathe over 
the whole place. Nothing lost, or out of order; not a picket 
loose in the fence, not a particle of litter in the turfy yard, with 
its clumps of lilac bushes growing up under the windows. With- 
in, he will remember wide, clean rooms, where nothing ever seems 
to be doing or going to be done, where everything is once and 
forever rigidly in place, and where all household arrangements 
move with the punctual exactness of the old clock in the corner. 
In the family " keeping room," as it is termed, he will remember 
the staid, respectableold bookcase, with its glass doors, where ''Rol- 
lin's History," <' Milton's Paradise Lost," ''Bunyan's Pilgrim's 
Progress, " and " Scott's Family Bible " stand side by side in decor- 
ous order, with multitudes of other books, equally solemn and re- 
spectable. There are no servants in the house, but the lady in 
the snowy cap, with the spectacles, who sits sewing every after- 
noon among her daughters, as if nothing ever had been done, or 
were to be done,— she and her girls, in some long-forgotten fore 
part of the day, '' did up the work,'' and for the rest of the time, 
probably, at all hours when you would see them, it is '< done up.'' 
The old kitchen floor never seems stained or spotted; the tables, 
the chairs, and the various cooking utensils never seem deranged 
or disordered; though three and sometimes four meals a day are 
got there, though the family washing and ironing is there per- 
formed, and though pounds of butter and cheese are in some 
silent and mysterious manner there brought into existence. 



220 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia had 
spent a quiet existence of some forty-five years, when her cousin 
invited her to visit his southern mansion. The eldest of a large 
family, she was still considered by her father and mother as one 
of "the children," and the proposal that she should go to Orleans 
was a most momentous one to the family circle. The old, gray- 
headed father took down Morse's Atlas out of the bookcase, and 
looked out the exact latitude and longitude; and read "Flint's 
Travels in the South and West," to make up his own mind as to 
the nature of the country. 

The good mother inquired, anxiously, "if Orleans wasn't an 

awful wicked place," saying, "that it seemed to her most equal 

to going to the Sandwich Islands, or anywhere among the 

heathen." 

******* 

Miss Ophelia, as you now behold her, stands before you, in a 
very shining brown linen traveling dress, tall, square-formed, 
and angular. Her face was thin, and rather sharp in its out- 
lines; the lips compressed, like those of a person who is in the habit 
of making up her mind definitely on all subjects; while the keen, 
dark eyes had a peculiarly searching, advised movement, and 
traveled over everything, as if they were looking for something 
to take care of. 

All her movements were sharp, decided and energetic; and, 
though she was never much of a talker, her words were remark- 
ably direct, and to the purpose, when she did speak. 

In her habits, she was a living impersonation of order, method 
and exactness. In punctuality, she was as inevitable as a clock, 
and as inexorable as a railroad engine; and she held in most de- 
cided contempt and abomination anything of a contrary char- 
acter. 

The great sin of sins, in her eyes,— the sum of all evils,— was 
expressed by one very common and important word in her vocab- 
ulary, — "shiftlessness." Her finale and ultimatum of contempt 
consisted in a very emphatic pronunciation of the word "shift- 
less;" and by this she characterized all modes of procedure which 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STO WE. 221 

had not a direct and inevitable relation to accomplishment of 
some purpose then definitely had in mind. People who did noth- 
ing, or who did not know exactly what they were going to do, or 
who did not take the most direct way to accomplish what they 
set their hands to, were objects of her entire contempt,— a con- 
tempt shown less frequently by anything she said, than by a kind 
of stony grimness, as if she scorned to say anything about the 
matter. 

As to mental cultivation, — she had a clear, strong, active 
mind, was well and thoroughly read in history and the older 
English classics, and thought with great strength within certain 
narrow limits. Her theological tenets were all made up, labeled 
in most positive and distinct forms, and put by, like the bundles 
in her patch trunk ; there were just so many of them, and there 
were never to be any more. So, also, were her ideas with regard 
to most matters of practical life,— such as housekeeping in all 
its branches, and the various political relations of her native 
village. And, underlying all, deeper than anything else, higher 
and broader, lay the strongest principle of her being — conscien- 
tiousness. Nowhere is conscience so dominant and all-absorbing 
as with New England women. It is the granite formation which 
lies deepest and rises out even to the tops of the highest moun- 
tains. 

Miss Ophelia was the absolute bond slave of the ^' ought.'" 

Once make her certain that the " path of duty," as she commonly 

phrased it, lay in any given direction, and fire and water could not 

keep her from it. She would walk straight down into a well, or up 

to a loaded cannon's mouth, if she were only quite sure that there 

the path lay. Her standard of right was so high, so all-embracing, 

so minute, and making so few concessions to human frailty, that, 

though she strove with heroic ardor to reach it, she never actually 

did so, and, of course, w^as burdened with a constant and often 

harassing sense of deficiency ;— this gave a severe and somewhat 

gloomy cast to her religious character. 

« « * * * * » 

One morning, while Miss Ophelia was busy in some of her 



222 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

domestic cares, St. Clare's voice was heard, calling her at the foot 
of the stairs. 

''Come down here, cousin; I 've something to show yon." 

"What is it?" said Miss Ophelia, coming down with her sew- 
ing in her hand. 

"I 've made a purchase for your department, — see here," said 
St. Clare; and, with the words, he pulled along a little negro girl, 
about eight or nine years of age. 

She was one of the blackest of her race; and her round shining 
eyes, glittering as glass beads, moved with quick and restless 
glances over everything in the room. Her mouth, half open with 
astonishment at the wonders of the new Mas'r's parlor, dis- 
played a white and brilliant set of teeth. Her woolly hair was 
braided in sundry little tails which stuck out in every direction. 
The expression of her face was an odd mixture of shrewdness and 
cunning, over which was oddly drawn, like a kind of veil, an 
expression of the most doleful gravity and solemnity. She was 
dressed in a single, filthy, ragged garment, made of bagging; and 
stood with her hands demurely folded before her. Altogether, 
there was something odd and goblin-like about her appear- 
ance, — something, as Miss Ophelia afterwards said, "so heathen- 
ish," as to inspire that good lady with utter dismay; and, 
turning to St. Clare, she said, — 

"Augustine, what in the world have you brought that thing 
here for?" 

"For you to educate, to be sure, and train in the way she 
should go. I thought she was rather a funny specimen in the Jim 
Crow line. Here, Topsy," he added, giving a whistle, as a man 
would to call the attention of a dog, "give us a song, now, and 
show us some of your dancing. " 

The black, glassy eyes glittered with a kind of wicked drollery, 
and the thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an odd negro mel- 
ody, to which she kept time with her hands and feet, spinning 
round, clapping her hands, knocking her knees together, in a 
wild, fantastic sort of time, and producing in her throat all those 
odd guttural sounds which distinguish the native music of her 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 223 

race; and finally turning a somerset or two, and giving a pro- 
longed closing note, as odd and unearthly as that of a steam 
whistle, she came suddenly down on the carpet, and stood with 
her hands folded, and a most sanctimonious expression of meek- 
ness and solemnity over her face, only broken by the cunning 
glances which she shot askance from the corners of her eyes. 

Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly paralyzed with amaze- 
ment. 

St. Clare, like a mischevious fellow as he was, appeared to en- 
joy her astonishment; and, addressing the child again, said, — 

"Topsy, this is your new mistress. I'm going to give you 
up to her; see, now, that you behave yourself." 

"Yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with sanctimonious gravity, her 
wicked eyes twinkling as she spoke. 

"You're going to be good, Topsy, you understand," said 
St. Clare. 

" Oh, yes, Mas'r," said Topsy, with another twinkle, her hands 
still devoutly folded. 

" Now, Augustine, what upon earth is this for?" said Miss 
Ophelia. " Y^our house is so full of these little plagues now, that 
a body can't set down their foot without treading on 'em. I 
get up in the morning, and find one asleep behind the door, 
and see one black head poking out from under the table, 
one lying on the doormat, — and they are mopping and mow- 
ing and grinning between all the railings, and tumbling over 
the kitchen floor ! What on earth did you want to bring this 
one for?" 

<'For you to educate,— didn't I tell you? You're always 
preaching about educating. I thought T would make you a pres- 
ent of a fresh caught specimen, and let you try your hand on 
her, and bring her up in the way she should go." 

"/don't want her, I am sure; I have more to do with 'em now 
than I want to." 

" That's you Christians, all over ! — you'll get up a society, and 
get some poor missionary to spend all his days among just such 
heathen. But let me see one of you that would take one into 



224 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

your house with you, and take the labor of their conversion 
on yourselves ! No ; when it comes to that, they are dirty and 
disagreeable, and it 's too much care, and so on." 

'< Augustine, you know I didn't think of it in that light," said 
Miss Ophelia, evidently softening. "Well, it might be a real 
missionary work," said she, looking rather more favorably on 
the child. 

St. Clare had touched the right string. Miss Ophelia's con- 
scientiousness was ever on the alert. '' But," she added, " I real- 
ly didn't see the need of buying this one;— there are enough now, 
in your house, to take all my time and skill." 

"Well, then, cousin," said St. Clare, drawing her aside, ''I 
ought to beg your pardon for my good-for-nothing speeches. 
You are bo good, after all, that there 's no sense in them. Why, 
the fact is, this concern belonged to a couple of drunken creatures 
that keep a low restaurant that I have to pass by every day, 
and I was tired of hearing her screaming, and them beating 
and swearing at her. She looked bright and funny, too, as if 
something might be made of her,— so I bought her, and I'll give 
her to you. Try, now, and give her a good orthodox New Eng- 
land bringing up, and see what it'll make of her. You know 
I haven't any gift that way; but I'd like you to try." 

"Well, I'll do what I can," said Miss Ophelia; and she ap- 
proached her new subject very much as a person might be 
supposed to approach a black spider, supposing such an one to 
have benevolent designs toward it. 

"She's dreadfully dirty, and half naked," she said. 

" Well, take her downstairs, and make some of them clean and 
clothe her up." 

Miss Ophelia carried her to the kitchen regions. 

*' Don't see what Mas'r St. Clare wants of 'nother nigger I '* 
said Dinah, surveying the new arrival with no friendly air. 
" Won't have her round under wy feet, /know ! " 

" Pah ! " said Rosa and Jane, with supreme disgust; "let her 
keep out of our way ! What in the world Mas'r wanted another 
of these low niggers for, I can't see ! " 



MRS. BAIIRIET BEECHER STOWE. 225 

"You go 'long! No more nigger dan you be, Miss Rosa," 
said Dinah, who felt this last remark a reflection on herself. 
"You seem to tink yourself white folks. You an't nerry one, 
black nor white. I'd like to be one or turrer." 

Miss Ophelia saw that there was nobody in the camp that 
would undertake to oversee the cleansing and dressing of the new 
arrival; and so she was forced to do it herself, with some very 
ungracious and reluctant assistance from Jane. 

It is not for ears polite to hear the particulars of the first 
toilet of a neglected, abused child. In fact, in this world, multi- 
tudes must live and die in a state that it would be too great a 
shock to the nerves of their fellow mortals even to hear described. 
Miss Ophelia had a good, strong, practical deal of resolution; 
and she went through all the disgusting details with heroic thor- 
oughness, though, it must be confessed, with no very gracious 
air,— for endurance was the utmost to which her principles could 
bring her. Wlien she saw on the back and shoulders of the 
child, great welts and calloused spots, ineffaceable marks of the 
system under which she had grown up thus far, her heart became 
pitiful within her. 

"See there!" said Jane, pointing to the marks, "don't that 
show she 's a limb? We'll have fine work with her, I reckon. I 
hate these nigger young uiis! so disgusting! I wonder that 
Mas'r would buy her ! " 

The " young un" alluded to heard all these comments with 
the subdued and doleful air which seemed habitual to her, only 
scanning, with a keen and furtive glance of her flickering eyes, 
the ornaments which Jane wore in her ears. When arrayed at 
last in a suit of decent and whole clothing, her hair cropped short 
to her head, Miss Ophelia, with some satisfaction, said she looked 
more Christian-like than she did, and in her own mind began to 
mature some plans for her instruction. 

Sitting down before her, she began to question her. 

" How old are you, Topsy ? " 

" Dunno, Missis," said the image, with a grin that showed all 
her teeth. 

2 T. L.— 15 



226 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

''Don't know how old you are? Did n't any body ever tell 
you? Who was your mother?" 

" Never had none! " said the child, with another grin. 

*' Never had any mother? What do you mean? Where were 
you born?" 

" Never was born ! " persisted Topsy, with another grin, that 
looked so goblin-like, that, if Miss Ophehahad been at all nervous, 
she might have fancied that she had got hold of some sooty gnome 
from the land of Diablerie ; but Miss Ophelia was not nervous, but 
plain and business-like, and she said, with some sternness,— 
''You must n't answer me in that way, child ; I am not playing 
with you. Tell me where you were born, and who your father 
and mother were." 

"Never was born," reiterated the creature, more emphatically ; 
"never had no father nor mother, nor nothin'. I was raised by a 
speculator, with lots of others. Old Aunt Sue used to take car 
on us." 

The child was evidently sincere; and Jane, breaking into a short 
laugh, said, — 

" Laws, Missis, there's heaps of 'em. Speculators buys 'em up 
cheap, when they's little, and gets 'em raised for market." 

" How long have you lived with your master and mistress?" 

"Dunno, Missis." 

" Is it a year, or more, or less? " 

"Dunno, Missis." 

"Laws, Missis, those low negroes,— they can't tell; they don't 
know anything about time," said Jane; "they don't know what 
a year is; they don't know their own ages." 

"Have you ever heard anything about God, Topsy?" 

The child looked bewildered, but grinned as usual. 

" Do you know who made you ? " 

"Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh. 

The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes 
twinkled, and she added,— 

" I spect I grow'd. Don't think nobody never made me." 

"Do you know how to sew?" said Miss Ophelia, who 



MRS. HA RR TE T B EEC HER S TO WE. 227 

thought she would turn her inquiries to something more 
tangible. 

'^No, Missis." 

''What can you do?— what did you do for your master and 
mistress? " 

''Fetch water, and wash dishes, and rub knives, and wait on 
folks." 

" Were they good to you ? " 

" ' Spect they was," said the child, scanning Miss Ophelia cun- 
ningly. 

Miss Ophelia rose from this encouraging colloquy; St. Clare 
was leaning over the back of her chair. 

"You find virgin soil there, cousin ; put in your own ideas, — 
you won't find many to pull up." 

Miss Oi)helia's ideas of education, like all her other ideas, were 
very set and definite, and of the kind that prevailed in New Eng- 
land a century ago, and which are still preserved in some very re- 
tired and unsophisticated parts, where there are no railroads. 
As nearly as could be expressed, they could be comprised in very 
few words: to teach them to mind when they were spoken to ; to 
teach them the catechism, sewing and reading; and to whip them 
if they told lies. And though, of course, in the flood of light that 
is now poured on education, these are left far away in the rear, 
yet it is an undisputed fact that our grandmothers raised some 
tolerably fair men and women under this regime, as many of us 
can remember and testif3\ At all events. Miss Ophelia knew of 
nothing else to do; and, therefore, applied her mind to her heathen 
with the best diligence she could command. 

The child was announced and considered in the family as Miss 
Ophelia's girl; and as she was looked upon with no gracious eye 
in the kitchen. Miss Ophelia resolved to confine her sphere of oper- 
ation and instruction chiefly to her own chamber. With a self- 
sacrifice which some of our readers will appreciate, she resolved, 
instead of comfortably making her own bed, sweeping and dust- 
ing her own chamber, — which she had hitherto done, in utter 
scorn of all offers of help from the chambermaid of the establish- 



228 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ment,— to condemn herself to the martyrdom of instructing Topsy 
to perform these operations,— ah, woe the day! Did any of our 
readers ever do the same, they will appreciate the amount of her 
self-sacrifice. 

Miss Ophelia began with Topsy by taking her into her cham- 
ber, the first morning, and solemnly commencing a course of in- 
struction in the art and mystery of bed making. 

Behold, then, Topsy, w^ashed and shorn of all the little 
braided tails w^herein her heart had delighted, arrayed in a 
clean gown with well-starched apron, standing reverently be- 
fore Miss Ophelia, with an expression of solemnity well befitting 
a funeral. 

"Now, Topsy, I 'm going to show you just how my bed is to be 
made. I am very particular about my bed. You must learn ex- 
actly how to do it." 

"Yes, ma'am," says Topsy, with a deep sigh, and a face of 
woeful earnestness. 

" Now, Topsy, look here;— this is the hem of the sheet,— this is 
the right side of the sheet, and this is the wrong ;— will you re- 
member?" 

"Yes, ma'am," says Topsy, wdth another sigh. 

"Well, now, the under sheet you must bring over the bolster, 
_so,— and tuck it clear down under the mattress nice and smooth, 
— so,— do you see? " 

"Yes, ma'am," said Topsy, with profound attention. 

"But the upper sheet," said Miss Ophelia, "must be brought 
down in this way, and tucked under firm and smooth at the foot, 
—so, the narrow hem at the foot." 

"Yes, ma'am," said Topsy, as before; but we will add, what 
Miss Ophelia did not see, that, during the time when the good 
lady'sbackwas turned, in the zeal of her manipulations, the young 
disciple had contrived to snatch a pair of gloves and a ribbon, 
which she had adroitly slipped into her sleeves, and stood with 
her hands dutifully folded, as before. 

"Now, Topsy, let 's see jozz do this," said Miss Ophelia, pull- 
ing off the clothes, and seating herself. 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 229 

Topsy, with great gravity and adroitness, went through tlie 
exercise completely to Miss Ophelia's satisfaction; smoothing the 
sheets, patting out every wrinkle, and exhibiting, through the 
whole process, a gravity and seriousness with which her instruct- 
ress was greatly edified. By an unlucky slip, however, a flutter- 
ing fragment of the ribbon hung out of one of her sleeves, just as 
she was finishing, and caught Miss Ophelia's attention. Instantly 
she pounced upon it. "What 's this? You naughty, wicked 
child, — you 've been stealing this! " 

The ribbon was pulled out of Topsy's own sleeve, yet was she 
not in the least disconcerted ; she only looked at it with an air of 
the most surprised and unconscious innocence. 

''Laws! why, that ar 's Miss Feely's ribbon, an't it? How 
could it 'a' got caught in my sleeve? " 

" Topsy, you naughty girl, don't you tell me a lie,— you stole 
that ribbon!" 

"Missis, I declar for 't, I didn't:— never seed it till dis yer 
blessed minnit." 

"Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, "don't you know it's wicked to 
tell lies?" 

"I never tells no lies. Miss Feely," said Topsy, with virtuous 
gravity ; " it's jist the truth I 've been a tellin' now, and an't 
nothin' else." 

" Tops3^ I shall have to whip you, if you tell lies so." 

" Laws, Missis, if you's to whip all day, couldn't say no other 
way," said Topsy, beginning to blubber. " I never seed dat ar, 
— it must 'a' got caught in my sleeve. Miss Feely must have left 
it on the bed, and it got caught in the clothes, and so got in my 
sleeve." 

Miss Ophelia was so indignant at the barefaced lie, that she 
caught the child, and shook her. 

" Don't you tell me that again ! " 

The shake brought the gloves on the floor, from the other 
sleeve. 

" There, you ! " said Miss Ophelia, " will you tell me now you 
didn't steal the ribbon? " 



230 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Topsy now confessed to the gloves, but still persisted in deny- 
ing the ribbon. 

''Now, Topsy," said Miss Ophelia, "if you'll confess all about 
it, I won't whip you this time." 

Thus adjured, Topsy confessed to the ribbon and gloves, with 
woeful protestations of penitence. 

" Well now, tell me. I know you must have taken other 
things since you have been in the house, for I let you run about 
all day yesterday. Now, tell me if you took anything, and I 
shan't whip you." 

" Laws, Missis ! I took Miss Eva's red thing she wars on her 
neck." 

" You did, you naughty child !— Well, what else? " 

" I took Rosa's yer rings,— them red ones." 

" Go bring them to me this minute, both of 'em." 

" Laws, Missis ! I can't,— they's burnt up ! " 

Burnt up !— what a story ! Go get 'em, or I'll whip you." 

Topsy, with loud protestations, and tears, and groans, 
declared that she could not. "They's burnt up, — they 
was." 

"What did you burn 'em up for?" said Miss Ophelia. 

" 'Cause I's wicked, — I is. I's mighty wicked, anyhow. I can't 
help it." 

Just at this moment, Eva came innocently into the room with 
the identical coral necklace on her neck. 

"Why, Eva, where did you get your necklace?" said Miss 
Ophelia. 

"Get it? Why, I've had it on all day," said Eva. 

" Did you have it on yesterday?" 

"Yes; and what is funny, aunty, I had it on all night. I 
forgot to take it off when I went to bed." 

Miss Ophelia looked perfectly bewildered ; the more so, as 
Rosa, at that instant, came into the room with a basket of new- 
ly-ironed linen poised on her head, and the coral ear-drops shak- 
ing in her ears ! 

" I'm sure I can't tell anything what to do with such a child ! " 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 231 

she said, in despair. "What in the world did you tell me you 
took those things for, Topsy?" 

''Why, Missis said I must 'fess; and I couldn'tthinkof nothin' 
else to 'fess," said Topsy, rubbing her eyes. 

" But, of course, I didn't want you to confess things 3^ou did 
n't do," said Miss Ophelia; ''that 's telling a lie, just as much 
as the other." 

"Laws, now, is it?" said Topsy, with an air of innocent 
wonder. 

" La, there an't such a thing as truth in that limb," said Rosa, 
looking indignantly at Topsy. "If I was Mas'r St. Clare, I'd 
whip her till the blood run. I would, — I'd let her catch it." 

" No, no, Rosa," said Eva, with an air of command, which the 
child could assume at times; "you mustn't talk so, Rosa. I 
can't bear to hear it." 

" La sakes ? Miss Eva, you 's so good, you don't know noth- 
ing how to get along with niggers. There 's no way but to cut 
*em well up, I tell ye." 

"Rosa! " said Eva, "hush ! Don't you say another word of 
that sort ! " and the eye of the child flashed, and her cheek deep- 
ened its color. 

Rosa was cowed in a moment. 

"Miss Eva has got the St. Clare blood in her, that 's plain. She 
can speak, for all the world, just like her papa," she said as 
she passed out of the room. 

Eva stood looking at Topsy. 

There stood the two children, representatives of the two ex- 
tremes of society. The £air, high-bred child, with her golden 
head, her deep eyes, her spiritual, noble brow, and prince-like 
movements; and her black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute 
neighbor. They stood the representatives of their races. The 
Saxon, born of ages of cultivation, command, education, physical 
and moral eminence; the Afric, born of ages of oppression, sub- 
mission, ignorance, toil, and vice! 

Something, perhaps, of such thoughts struggled through Eva's 
mind. But a child's thoughts are rather dim, undefined instincts; 



232 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

and in Eva's noble nature many such were yearninj^ and work- 
ing, for which she had no power of utterance. When Miss Ophelia 
expatiated on Topsy's naughty, wicked conduct, the child looked 
perplexed and sorrowful, but said, sweetly, — 

<' Poor Topsy, why need you steal ? You 're going to be taken 
good care of, now. I 'm sure I 'd rather give you anything of 
mine, than have you steal it." 

It was the first word of kindness the child had ever heard in 
her life ; and the sweet tone and manner struck strangely on the 
wild, rude heart, and a sparkle of something like a tear shone in 
the keen, round, glittering eye ; but it was followed by the short 
laugh and habitual grin. No ! the ear that has never heard any- 
thing but abuse is strangely incredulous of anj^thing so heavenly 
as kindness; and Topsy only thought Eva's speech something 
funny and inexplicable, — she did not believe it. 

But what was to be done with Topsy ? Miss Ophelia found the 
case a puzzler ; her rules for bringing up did n't seem to apply. 
She thought she would take time to think of it ; and by the way 
of gaining time, and in hopes of some indefinite moral vir- 
tues supposed to be inherent in dark closets. Miss Ophelia shut 
Topsy up in one till she had arranged her ideas further on the 
subject. 

" I don't see," said Miss Ophelia to St. Clare, "how I 'm going 
to manage that child, without whipping her." 

"Well, whip her, then, to your heart's content; I '11 give you 
full power to do what you like." 

" Children always have to be whipped," said Miss Ophelia; "I 
never heard of bringing them up without." 

"Oh, well, certainly," said St Clare; "do as you think best. 
Only I'll make one suggestion : I've seen this child whipped with 
a poker, knocked down with the shovel or tongs, whichever 
came handiest; and, seeing that she is used to that style of op- 
eration, I think your whippings will have to be pretty energetic, 
to make much impression." 

" What is to be done with her, then ! " said Miss Ophelia. 

" You have started a serious question," said St. Clare; " I wish 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 233 

you'd answer it. What is to be done with a human being that 
can be governed only by the lash,— that fails,— it 's a very com- 
mon state of things down here! " 

" I'm sure I don't know; I never saw such a child as this." 

<<Such children are very common among us, and such men 
and women, too. How are they to be governed!" said St. 
Clare. 

"I'm sure it 's more than I can say," said Miss Ophelia. 

''Or I either," said St. Clare. "The horrid cruelties and out- 
rages that once in a while find their way into the papers, — such 
cases as Prue's, for example,— what do they come from? In 
many cases it is a gradual hardening process on both sides,— the 
owner growing more and more cruel as the servant more and 
more callous. Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; 
you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline. I saw 
this very early when I became an owner; and I resolved never to 
begin, because I did not know when I should stop,— and I re- 
solved, at least, to protect my own moral nature. The conse- 
quence is, that my servants act like spoiled children; but I think 
that better than for us both to be brutalized together. You 
have talked a great deal about our responsibilities in educating, 
cousin. I really wanted you to try with one child, who is a 
specimen of thousands among us." 

"It is your system makes such children," said Miss Ophelia. 

" I know it ; but they are made,— they exist,— and what is to be 
done with them?" 

" Well, I can't say I thank you for the experiment. But, then, 
as it appears to be a duty, I shall persevere and try, and do the 
best I can," said Miss Ophelia; and Miss Ophelia, after this, did 
labor, with a commendable degree of zeal and energy, on her 
new subject. She instituted regular hours and employments for 
her, and undertook to teach her to read and to sew. 

In the former art, the child was quick enough. She learned her 
letters as if by magic, and was very soon able to read plain read- 
ing ; but the sewing was a more difficult matter. The creature 
was as lithe as a cat, and as active as a monkey, and the 



234 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

confinement of sewing was her abomination; so she broke her nee- 
dles, threw them slyly out of windows, or down in chinks of the 
walls; she tangled, broke, and dirtied her thread, or, with a sly 
movement, would throw a spool away altogether. Her motions 
were almost as quick as those of a practiced conjurer, and her 
command of her face quite as great ; and though Miss Ophelia 
could not help feeling that so many accidents could not pos- 
sibly happen in succession, yet she could not, without a watch- 
fulness which would leave her no time for anything else, detect 
her. 

Topsy was soon a noted character in the establishment. Her 
talent for every species of drollery, grimace, and mimicry — for 
dancing, tumbling, climbing, singing, whistling, imitating every 
sound that hit her fancy— seemed inexhaustible. In her play- 
hours, she invariably had every child in the establishment at her 
heels, open-mouthed, with admiration and wonder, — not except- 
ing Miss Eva, who appeared to be fascinated by her wild dia- 
blerie, as a dove is sometimes charmed by a glittering serpent. 
Miss Ophelia was uneasy that Eva should fancy Topsy 's society 
so much, and implored St. Clare to forbid it. 

" Poh ! let the child alone," said St. Clare. '< Topsy will do her 
good." 

"But so depraved a child, — are you not afraid she will teach 
her some mischief? " 

''She can't teach her mischief; she might teach it to some 
children, but evil rolls off Eva's mind like dew off a cabbage leaf, 
not a drop sinks in." 

" Don't be too sure," said Miss Ophelia. " 1 know I'd never 
let a child of mine play with Topsy." 

" Well, your children need n't," said St. Clare, " but mine may ; 
if Eva could have been spoiled it would have been done years ago." 

Topsy was at first despised and contemned by the upper 
servants. They soon found reason to alter their opinion. It 
was very soon discovered that whoever cast an indignity on Top- 
sy was sure to meet with some inconvenient accident shortly 
after; — either a pair of earrings or some cherished trinket would 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 235 

be missing, or an article of dress would be suddenly found ut- 
terly ruined, or the person would stumble accidentally into a pail 
of hot water, or a libation of dirty slop would unaccountably 
deluge them from above when in full gala dress;— and on all 
these occasions, when investigation was made, there was nobody 
found to stand sponsor for the indignity. Topsy was cited, and 
had up before all the domestic judicatories, time and again; 
but always sustained her examinations with most edifying in- 
nocence and gravity of appearance. Nobody in the world ever 
doubted who did the thing; but not a scrap of any direct evi- 
dence could be found to establish the suppositions, and Miss 
Ophelia was too just to feel at liberty to proceed to any length 
without it. 

The mischiefs done were always so nicely timed, also, as fur- 
ther to shelter the aggressor. Thus, the times for revenge on 
Rosa and Jane, the two chambermaids, were always chosen in 
those seasons when (as not unfrequently happened) they were 
in disgrace with their mistress, when any complaint from them 
would of course meet with no sympathy. In short, Topsy soon 
made the household understand the propriety of letting her 
alone ; and she was let alone accordingly. 

Topsy was smart and energetic in all manual operations, 
learning everything that was taught her with surprising quick- 
ness. With a few lessons, she had learned to do the proprieties 
of Miss Ophelia's chamber in a way with which even that par- 
ticular lady could find no fault. Mortal hands could not lay 
spread smoother, adjust pillows more accurately, sweep and dust 
and arrange more perfectly, than Topsy, when she chose, — but she 
didn't very often choose. If Miss Ophelia, after three or four days 
of careful and patient supervision, was so sanguine as to suppose 
that Topsy had at last fallen into her way, could do without 
overlooking, and so go off and busy herself about something 
else, Topsy would hold a perfect carnival of confusion, for some 
one or two hours. Instead of making the bed she would amuse 
herself with pulling off the pillow cases, butting her woolly head 
among the pillows, till it would sometimes be grotesquely 



236 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ornamented with feathers sticking out in various directions ; she 
would climb the posts, and hang her head downward from the 
tops; flourish the sheets and spreads all over the apartment; 
dress the bolster up in Miss Ophelia's night-clothes, and enact 
various scenic performances with that, — singing and whistling, 
and making grimaces at herself in the looking-glass; in short, as 
Miss Ophelia phrased it, ''raising Cain " generally. 

On one occasion, Miss Ophelia found Topsy with her very 
best scarlet India canton crape shawl wound round her head for 
a turban, going on with her rehearsals before the glass in great 
style, — Miss Ophelia having, with carelessness most unheard of 
in her, left the key for once in her drawer. 

"Topsy!" she would say, when at the end of all patience, 
'' what does make you act so ? '* 

" Dunno, Missis,— I spects 'cause I'se so wicked ! " 

'' I don't know anything what I shall do with you, Topsy." 

"Law, Missis, you must whip me; my old Missis allers 
whipped me. I an't used to workin' unless I gets whipped." 

"Why, Topsy, I don't want to whip you. You can do well, if 
you've a mind to ; what is the reason you won't ? " 

"Laws, Missis, I'se used to whippin'; I spects it 's good for 
me." 

"Miss Ophelia tried the recipe, and Topsy invariably made a 
terrible commotion, screaming, groaning, and imploring, though 
half an hour afterwards, when roosted on some projection of the 
balcony, and surrounded by a flock of admiring "young uns," 
she would express the utmost contempt of the whole affair. 

"Law, Miss Feely whip ! — wouldn't killaskeeter,her whippin's. 
Oughter to see how old Mas'r made the flesh fly; old Mas'r 
know'd how! " 

Topsy always made great capital of her own sins and enormi- 
ties, evidently considering them as something peculiarly dis- 
tinguishing. 

"Law, you niggers," she would say to some of her auditors, 
"does you know you's all sinners? Well, you is, — everybody is. 
White folks is sinners too,— Miss Feely says so; but I spects nig- 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 237 

gers is the biggest ones; but lor! ye an't any on ye up to me. 
I's so awful wicked there can't nobody do nothin' with me. I 
used to keep old Missis a swarin' at me half de time. I spects I's 
the wickedest crittur in the w^orld; " and Topsy would cut a 
somerset, and come up brisk and shining on to a higher perch, 
and evidently plume herself on the distinction. 

Miss Ophelia busied herself very earnestly on Sundays, teach- 
ing Topsy the catechism. Topsy had an uncommon verbal 
memory, and committed with a fluency that greatly encouraged 
her instructress. 

" What good do you expect it is going to do her? " said St. 
Clare. 

"Why, it always has done children good. It 's what children 
always have to learn, you know," said Miss Ophelia. 

" Understand it or not,'' said St. Clare. 

" Oh, children never understand it at the time; but, after they 
are grown up, it '11 come to them." 

''Mine has n't come to me yet," said St. Clare, "though I'll 
bear testimony that you put it into me pretty thoroughly when I 
was a boy." 

"Ah, you were always good at learning, Augustine. I used to 
have great hopes of you," said Miss Ophelia. 

" Well, have n't you now ? " said St. Clare. 

" I wish you were as good as you were when you were a boy, 
Augustine." 

"So do I, that's a fact, cousin," said St. Clare. " Well, go 
ahead and catechise Topsy; may be you'll make out something 
yet." 

Topsy, who had stood like a black statue during this discus- 
sion, with hands decently folded, now, at a signal from Miss 
Ophelia, went on, — 

" Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, 
fell from the state wherein they were created." 

Topsy's eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly. 

" What is it, Topsy? " said Miss Ophelia. 

" Please, Missis, was dat ar state Kintuck? " 



238 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

"What state, Topsy?" 

" Dat state dej fell out of. I used to hear Mas'r tell how we 
came down from Kintuck ? " 

St. Clare laughed. 

''You'll have to give her a meaning, or she'll make one," said 
he. " There seems to be a theory of emigration suggested there." 

" Oh, Augustine, be still," said Miss Ophelia; "how can I do 
anything, if you will be laughing?" 

"Well, I won't disturb the exercises again, on my honor;" 
and St. Clare took his paper into the parlor, and sat down, till 
Topsy had finished her recitations. They were all very well, only 
that now and then she would oddly transpose some important 
words, and persist in the mistake, in spite of every effort to the 
contrary; and St. Clare, after all his promises of goodness, 
took a wicked pleasure in these mistakes, calling Topsy to him 
whenever he had a mind to amuse himself, and getting her to 
repeat the offending passages, in spite of Miss Ophelia's remon- 
strances. 

" How do you think I can do anything with the child if you 
will go on so, Augustine? " she w^ould say. 

" Well, it is too bad,— I won't again; but I do like to hear the 
droll little image stumble over those big words." 

" But you confirm her in the wrong way." 

"What's the odds? One word is as good as another to her." 

"You wanted me to bring her up right; and you ought to 
remember she is a reasonable creature, and be careful of your 
influence over her." 

"Oh, dismal! so I ought; but, as Topsy herself says, 'I's so 
wicked ! '" 

In very much this way Topsy 's training proceeded, for a year 
or two, — Miss Ophelia worrying herself, from day to day, with 
her, as a kind of chronic plague, to whose inflictions she became, 
in time, as accustomed as persons sometimes do to the neuralgia 
or sick headache. 

St. Clare took the same kind of amusement in the child that a 
man might in the tricks of a parrot or a pointer. Topsy, when- 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 239 

ever her sins brought her into disgrace in other quarters, always 
took refuge behind his chair ; and St. Clare, in one way or other, 
would make peace for her. From him she got many a stray 
picayune, which she laid out in nuts and candies, and distributed, 
with careless generosity, to all the children in the family; for 
Topsy, to do her justice, was good-natured and liberal, and only 
spiteful in self-defense. She is fairly introduced into our corps de 
ballet J and will figure, from time to time, in her turn, with other 
performers. 



Tt was Sunday afternoon. St. Clare was stretched on a bam- 
boo lounge in the veranda, solacing himself with a cigar. Marie 
lay reclined on a sofa, opposite the window opening on the ver- 
anda, closely secluded, under an awning of transparent gauze, 
from the outrages of the mosquitoes, and languidly holding in 
her hand an elegantly bound prayer book. She was holding it 
because it was Sunday, and she imagined she had been reading 
it, — though, in fact, she had been only taking a succession of short 
naps, with it open in her hand. 

Miss Ophelia, who, after some rummaging, had hunted up a 
small Methodist meeting within riding distance, had gone out, 
with Tom as driver, to attend it; and Eva had accompanied 
them. 

" I say, Augustine," said Marie, after dozing a while, ''I must 
send to the city after my old Dr. Posey; I'm sure I've got the 
complaint of the heart." 

" Well ; why need you send for him ? This doctor that attends 
Eva seems skillful." 

" I would not trust him in a critical case," said Marie , " and I 
think I may say mine is becoming so ! I've been thinking of it, 
these two or three nights past ; I have such distressing pains, and 
such strange feelings." 

'*0h, Marie, you are blue; I don't believe it 's heart com- 
plaint." 

"I dare say you don't," said Marie; "I was prepared to 



240 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

expect that. You can be alarmed enough, if Eva coughs, or 
has the least thing the matter with her; but you never think 
of me." 

"If it's particularly agreeable to you to have heart disease, 
why, I'll try and maintain you have it," said St. Clare; " I didn't 
know it was." 

" Well, I only hope you won't be sorry for this when it 's too 
late," said Marie; "but, believe it or not, my distress about Eva, 
and the exertions I have made with that dear child, have developed 
what I have long suspected." 

What the exer^ioBS were, which Marie referred to, it would have 
been difficult to state. St. Clare quietly made this commentary • 
to himself, and went on smoking, like a hard-hearted wretch of 
a man as he was, till a carriage drove up before the veranda, and 
Eva and Miss Ophelia alighted. 

Miss Ophelia marched straight to her own chamber, to put 
away her bonnet and shawl, as w^as always her manner, before 
she spoke a word on any subject; while Eva came, at St. Clare's 
call, and was sitting on his knee, giving him an account of the 
services they had heard. 

They soon heard loud exclamations from Miss Ophelia's room, 
which, like the one in which they w^ere sitting, opened on the 
veranda, and violent reproof addressed to somebody. 

''What new witchcraft has Topsy been brewing? " asked St. 
Clare. " That commotion is of her raising, I '11 be bound ! " 

And, in a moment after. Miss Ophelia, in high indignation, came 
dragging the culprit along. 

"Come out here, now ! " she said. " I will tell your master ! " 

" What 's the case now ? " asked Augustine. 

"The case is, that I cannot be plagued with this child any 
longer! It 's past all bearing; flesh and blood cannot endure it. 
Hei-e, I locked her up, and gave her a hymn to study; and what 
does she do, but spy out where I put my key, and has gone to 
my bureau, and got a bonnet-trimming, and cut it all to pieces, 
to make dolls' jackets! I never saw anything like it, in my 
life!" 



MES. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 241 

<<I told you, cousin," said Marie, "that you'd find out that 
these creatures can't be brought up without severity. If I hadznj 
way, now," she said, looking reproachfully at St. Clare, "I'd 
send that child out, and have her thoroughly whipped; I 'd have 
her whipped till she could n't stand ! " 

" I don't doubt it," said St. Clare. " Tell me of the lovely rule 
of woman ! I never saw above a dozen women that would n't 
half kill a horse, or a servant, either, if they had their own way 
with them '.—let alone a man ! ' ' 

"There is no use in this shilly-shally way of yours, St. Clare ! " 
said Marie. " Cousin is a woman of sense, and she sees it now, as 
plainly as I do." 

Miss Ophelia had just the capability of indignation that be- 
longs to the thorough-paced housekeeper, and this had been 
pretty actively roused by the artifice and wastefulness of the 
child; in fact, many of my lady readers must own that they 
should have felt just so in her circumstances; but Marie's words 
went beyond her, and she felt less heat. 

" I would n't have the child treated so for the world," she said; 
"but, I amsure, Augustine, I don't know what to do. I've taught 
and taught; I've talked till I'm tired; I've whipped her; I've pun- 
ished her in every way I can think of, and still she's just what she 
was at first." 

"Come here, Tops, you monkey ! " said St. Clare, calling the 
child up to him. 

Topsy came up; her round, hard eyes glittering and blinking 
with a mixture of apprehensiveness and their usual odd drollery. 

" What makes you behave so?" said St. Clare, who could not 
help being amused with the child's expression. 

"Spects it 's my wicked heart," said Topsy, demurely; "Miss 
Feely says so." 

"Don't you see how much Miss Ophelia has done for you? She 
says she has done everything she can think of." 

" Lor, yes, Mas'r ! old Missis used to say so, too. She whipped 
me a heap harder; and used to pull my har, and knock my head 
agin the door; but it didn't do me no good! I spects, if they 's to 

2 T. L.— 16 



242 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

pull every spear o' har out o' mj head, it wouldn't do no good, 
neither,— I's so wicked! Laws! I's nothin' but a nigger, no- 
ways!" 

"Well, I shall have to give her up," said Miss Ophelia. '*1 
can't have that trouble any longer." 

''Well, I'd just like to ask one question," said St. Clare. 

"What is it?" 

" Why, if your gospel is not strong enough to save one heathen 
child, that you can have at home here, all to yourself, what 's 
the use of sending one or two poor missionaries off with it among 
thousands of just such? I suppose this child is but a fair sam- 
ple of what thousands of your heathen are." 

Miss Ophelia did not make an immediate answer; and Eva, 
who had stood a silent spectator of the scene thus far, made a 
silent sign to Topsy to follow her. There was a little glass 
room at the corner of the veranda, which St. Clare used as a sort 
of reading room ; and Eva and Topsy disappeared into this 
place. 

"What's Eva going about, now?" said St. Clare. "I mean 
to see." 

And advancing on tiptoe, he lifted up a curtain that covered 
the glass door, and looked in. In a moment, laying his fin- 
ger on his lips, he made a silent gesture to Miss Ophelia to 
come and look. There sat the two children on the floor, with 
their side faces towards them, Topsy, with her usual air 
of careless drollery and unconcern ; but opposite to her, Eva, 
her whole face fervent with feeling, and tears in her large 
eyes. 

"What does make you so bad, Topsy! Why won't you try 
and be good ! Don't you love anybody, Topsy ? " 

"Dunno nothing 'bout love; I loves candy and sich, that's 
all," said Topsy. 

"But you love your father and mother?" 

"Never had none, ye know. I telled ye that. Miss Eva." 

"Oh, I know," said Eva sadly; "but hadn't you any broth- 
er, or sister, or aunt, or " — 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 243 

"No, none on 'em, — never had nothing nor nobody." 

" But, Topsy ; if you'd only try to be good, you might " — 

"Couldn't never be no thin' but a nigger, if I was ever so 
good," said Topsy. "If I could be skinned, and come white, 
I'd try then." 

" But people can love you, if you are black, Topsy. Miss Ophe- 
lia would love you if you weregood." 

Topsy gave the short, blunt laugh that was her common mode 
of expressing incredulity. 

"Don't you think so ? " said Eva. 

" No; she can't bar me, 'cause I'm a nigger! — she'd 's soon 
have a toad touch her ! There can't nobody love niggers, and 
niggers can't do nothin'! /don't care," said Topsy, beginning to 
whistle. 

"Oh, Topsy, poor child, Jlove you?" said Eva, with a sud- 
den burst of feeling, and laying her little thin, white hand on 
Topsy's shoulder. "I love you, because you haven't had any 
father, or mother, or friends; — because you've been a poor, 
abused child! I love you, and I wan't you to be good. lam 
very unwell, Topsy, and I think I shan't live a great while; and 
it really grieves me to have you be so naughty. I wish 3^ou 
would try to be good, for my sake; — it's only a little while I shall 
be with you." 

The round, keen eyes of the black child were overcast with 
tears; — large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one by one, and 
fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that moment, a ray of real 
belief, a ray of heavenly love, had penetrated the darkness of her 
heathen soul ! She laid her head down between her knees, and 
wept and sobbed,— while the beautiful child, bending over her, 
looked like the picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim 
a sinner. 

" Poor Topsy ! " said Eva, " don't you know that Jesus loves 
all alike? He is just as willing to love you as me. He loves you 
just as I do, — only more, because He is better. He will help you 
to be good ; and you can go to heaven at last, and be an angel 
forever, just as much as if you were white. Only think of it, 



244 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Topsy !—jou can be one of those spirits bright, Uncle Tom 
sings about." 

<<0h, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!" said the child, "I will 
try, I will try ; I never did care nothin' about it before." 

St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. '' It puts me in 
mind of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. '' It is true what she 
told me ; if we want to give sight to the blind, we must be willing 
to do as Christ did,— call them to us, and put our bands on 
thew.^' 

"I 've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss 
Ophelia, " and it 's a fact, I never could bear to have that child 
touch me; but I did n't think she knew it." 

'< Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare; ''there 's 
no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the trying in the 
world to benefit a child, and all the substantial favors you can 
do them, will never excite one emotion of gratitude, while that 
feeling of repugnance remains in the heart; — it 's a queer kind of 
a fact, — but so it is." 

" I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia; ''they 
are disagreeable to me,— this child in particular, — how can I help 
feeling so?" 

"Eva does, it seems." 

" Well, she 's so loving ! After all, though, she 's no more than 
Christ-like," said Miss Ophelia; "I wish I were like her. She 
might teach me a lesson." 

" It would n't be the first time a little child had been used to 
instruct an old disciple, if it were so," said St. Clare. 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

Mrs. Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin" at Brunswick, Me., with her 
seventh child in her arms. She was intellectually and morally unpre- 
pared for the task. As she was personally unacquainted with Southern 
life, her book lacks in local truth and color. She had but little personal 
knowledge of the facts, no heart for the work, only ambition to write. 
The book owes its origin to the wife of Edward Beecher, whose letters 
prompted " Harriet" to vow that she would write something that would 



MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 245 

make the whole nation feel. She began to publish the story as a serial 
in the National Era, published at Washington, D. C, June 5, 1851 . It 
was to run three months ; it ran ten. The first chapter that slie wrote 
was the "Death of Uncle Tom," which came to her in vision at a Com- 
munion Service. The story was afterwards published in book form. She 
received $10,000 as royalty for the first three months and as much more 
at the end of the next six. Her book converted her from a coloni- 
zationist to an abolitionist. 

The Nation says : " The enlarging influence of a great work has sel- 
dom had a finer illustration than in the general effect of "Uncle Tom" on 
Mrs. Stowe's mind and character. It helped to liberate the slave; it en- 
tirely liberated her own genius. After 1852, she seems a different woman. 
Looked to for counsel and encouragement, she rose to the occasion. In 
her letters we have the dignity of great events for the trivialities of 
domestic miseries. In 'Dred' and the 'Minister's Wooing,' and * Old 
Tow^n Folks,' she attained to an artistic excellence which had been de- 
nied to her great improvization. We are obliged to feel that if there had 
been at the foundation of "Uncle Tom" the assimilated experience of the 
New England stories, it would have been a great advantage. 

" AVe get the critical point of view in a few letters from Harriet Mar- 
TiNEAu, RusKiN, George Eliot and James Russell Lowell. Mr. Low- 
ell's letters are of great interest and importance. He says, ' From long 
habit and from the tendency of my studies, I cannot help looking at 
things purely from an aesthetic point of view, and what I valued in 
"Uncle Tom" was the genius, not the moral.' 

"The art value of 'Dred' and the 'Minister's Wooing,' is much 
greater than that of "Uncle Tom." The * Minister s Wooing' does not 
lend itself to the doctrine that the best work is done without engage- 
ment of the conscience and the heart. He had a deeper moral root than 
Uncle Tom. Mrs. Stowe's soul was never shaken by the wickedness of 
slavery as by the enormity of the doctrine of eternal punishment." 



CHARLES DICKENS. 

1812-1870. 

Charles Dickens, who excels in popularity all other English novel- 
ists, was born at Portsmouth, England, in 1812. His early years were 
passed under scarcely less trying circumstances than described in his 
own story of David Copperfield. His father, although a man of conscien- 
tious intelligence, industrious, and })unctual in his occupation — first a 
clerk in the Navy Pay OflBce at Portsmouth and later a reporter of Par- 
liamentary debates — was too easy-tempered and too impractical in dis- 
posing of his moderate income, to keep pace with the wants of a 
rapidly increasing family. The boj^'s mother seems to have been a ]»er- 
son of more energy as well as of considerable accomplishments. She 
taught him the rudiments of Latin, and tried to estabhsh a boarding 
school in Govver street. The one parent was the original of Micawber, 
the other of Mrs. Nickleby. With all their united efforts they could not 
keep out of distress. The boarding house scheme came too late, and when 
Dickens was nine years old the family was living in abject poverty in 
Bayham Street, Camden Town, then one of the ])oorest suburbs of Lon- 
don, and their difficulties were increasing upon them. Charles was sent 
out to earn six shillings a week in a blacking warehouse, tying blue cov- 
ers on pots of paste blacking. For two years the child led a very hard, 
uncared-for life at this uncongenial work. He bitterly felt that it was 
uncongenial, for he was very precocious and had read much for a boy 
of his age, as fortunately his father possessed a small collection of books 
suited to his comprehension. At twelve he was placed in school at Morn- 
ington Place for a brief period ; at fifteen he became office boy for an at- 
torney at Gray's Inn. Later on he mastered the difficulties of shorthand 
and commenced the study of law, but soon changed his occupation 
to that of a reporter, first of law cases and then of political speeches 
in and out of Parliament. It was at this time that he made his first 
regular literary contribution, which appeared in the "Old Monthly Maga- 
zine," and which subsequently constituted a part of his first published 
book, "Sketches by Boz." Following his first work, appeared at vary- 
ing intervals *' The Pickwick Papers," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Oliver 
Twist," " Old Curiosity Shop," "Barnaby Rudge," "Dombey and Son," 
and half a score of others whose names are almost household words. He 
possessed a fertility of imagination scarcely equaled by any other writer, 
(246) 



CHARLES DICKENS. 247 

and his novels will live longer, because they take hold of the permanent 
and universal sentiments of the race— sentiments which pervade all 
classes, and which no culture can ever eradicate. 

The story from which this selection is taken was originally published 
in "Household Words; " the first chapter making its appearance in No. 
210, for April, 1854, and the last in No. 229, for August 12, 1854. In 
the same year it was brought out independently, in one octavo volume 
of 352 pages, and was inscribed to Thomas Carlyle. In a letter to Mr. 
Charles Knight (quoted in his "Passage of a Working Life"), Mr. Dick- 
ens thus explains his design in writing this story : — 

My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing 
else,— the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of 
this time; the men who, through long years to come, will do more to 
damage the really useful truths of political economy than I could do (if I 
tried) in my whole life; the addled heads who would take the average 
of cold in the Crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothiug a 
soldier in nankeen on a cold night when he would be frozen to death 
in fur, and who would comfort the laborer in traveling twelve miles 
a day to and from his work by telling him that the average distance 
of one inhabited place from another on the whole area of England is 
not more than four miles. 

"Let us not lose the use of Dickens' wit and insight," says Mr. Ruskin 
("Unto this Last,"ch.i.), "because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage 
fire. He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he 
has written ; and all of them, but especially " Hard Times," should be 
studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social ques- 
tions. They will find much that is partial, and, because partial, ap- 
parently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, 
which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, 
that his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told." 



M'Choakumchild's School. 

The M'Choakumchild's school Avas all facts. 
(From "Hard Times," by Charles Dickens.) 

''Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls 
nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant noth- 
ing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the 
minds of reasoning animals upon Facts : nothing else will ever 
be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring 



248 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up 
these children. Stick to Facts, sir! " 

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school- 
room, and the speaker's square forefingeremphasized his observa- 
tions by underscoring every sentence with a line on the school- 
master's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's 
square M^all of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, 
while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, 
overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the 
speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The em- 
phasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, 
dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's 
hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation 
of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with 
knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely 
warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's 
obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders — 
nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with 
an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was — all 
helped the emphasis. 

''In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but 
Facts!" 

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown per- 
son present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the in- 
clined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, 
ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until 
they were full to the brim. 

Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts 
and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that 
two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be 
talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir 
—peremptorily Thomas— Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a 
pair of scales, and the multiplication table alwa3^s in his pocket, 
sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, 
and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of 
figures, a case of simple Arithmetic. You might hope to get some 



CHARLES DICKENS. 249 

other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or 
Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind 
(all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of 
Thomas Gradgrind— no, sir ! 

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced him- 
self, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the pub- 
lic in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words 
"boys and girls," for "sir," Thomas Gradgrind now presented 
Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to 
be filled so full of facts. 

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage be- 
fore mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muz- 
zle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the 
regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing 
apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for 
the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away. 

"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing 
with his square forefinger, " I don't know that girl. Who is that 
girl?" 

"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty blushing, stand- 
ing up, and courtesying. 

" Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. " Don't call your- 
self Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia." 

"It 's father as calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl in 
a trembling voice, and with another courtesy. 

" Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Tell 
him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your 
father?" 

"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir." 

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling 
with his hand. 

"We don't want to know anything about that, here. You 
mustn't tell us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, 
don't he?" 

"If you please, sir, when they get any to break, they do break 
horses in the ring, sir," 



250 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

''You mustn't tell us about the ring, here. Yery well then. 
Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, 
I dare say?" 

*'0h, yes, sir.'- 

"Yery well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and 
horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse." 

(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) 

" Girl number twenty unable to define a horse ! " said Mr. Grad- 
grind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. "Girl num- 
ber twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the 
commonest of animals ! Some boy's definition of a horse. Bit- 
zer, yours." 

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on 
Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sun- 
light which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the intense- 
ly whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls 
sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, 
divided up the center by a narrow interval ; and Sissy, being at 
the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the beginning 
of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on 
the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But, 
whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she 
seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous color from the sun, 
when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light- 
haired, that the selfsame rays appeared to draw out of him 
what little color he ever possessed. His cold eyes w ould hard- 
ly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by 
bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler 
than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair 
might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his 
forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in 
the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, 
he would bleed white. 

"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind. "Your definition of a 
horse." 

" Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely, twenty- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 251 

four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in 
the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, 
but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in 
mouth." Thus (and much more) Bitzer. 

" Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind. " You know 
what a horse is." 

She courtesyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she 
could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. 
Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both 
eyes at once, and so catching the light upon his quivering ends 
of lashes that they looked like the antennae of busy insects, put 
his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat down again. 

The third gentleman now stepped forward. A mighty man at 
cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in his way 
(and in most other people's too), a professed pugilist; always 
in training, always with a system to force down the general 
throat like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little 
Public-office, ready to fight All England. To continue in fistic 
phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch, 
wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly cus- 
tomer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with 
his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore 
his opponent (he always fought All England) to the ropes, and 
fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out of 
common sense, and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the 
call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to 
bring about the great public-office Millennium, when Commis- 
sioners should reign upon earth. 

'^ Very well," said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding 
his arms. ''That's a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and 
boys, would you paper a room with representations of horses?" 

After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, "Yes, 
sir ! " Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face 
that yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, " No, sir! " — as the cus- 
tom is, in these examinations. 

*' Of course, No. Why wouldn't you ? " 



252 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of 
breathmg, ventured the answer, Because he wouldn't paper a 
room at all, but would paint it. 

" You must paper it," said the gentleman, rather warmly. 

" You must paper it," said Thomas Gradgrind, " whether you 
like it or not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. What do 
you mean, boy?" 

" I '11 explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another 
and a dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with rep- 
resentations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and 
down the sides of rooms in reality— in fact? Do you ? " 

"Yes, sir! " from one half. " No, sir! " from the other. 

" Of course, No," said the gentleman, with an indignant look 
at the wrong half . "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, 
what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what 
you don't have in fact. What is called Taste, is only another 
name for Fact." 

Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation. 

" This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said 
the gentleman. "Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were 
going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a repre- 
sentation of flowers upon it ? " 

There being a general conviction by this time that "No, sir ! " 
was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of No 
was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes; among 
them Sissy Jupe. 

"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the 
calm strength of knowledge. 

Sissy blushed, and stood up. 

" So you would carpet your room— or your husband's room, 
if you were a grown woman, and had a husband— with represen- 
tations of flowers, would you," said the gentleman. "Why 
would you?" 

"If you please, sir, I amveryfond of flowers," returned the girl. 

" And that is why you would put tables and chairs upon them, 
and have people walking over them with heavy boots? " 



CHARLES DICKENS. 253 

"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, 
if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very 
pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy " 

"Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, 
quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "That's it I 
You are never to fancy." 

"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly re- 
peated, "to do anything of that kind." 

"Fact, fact, fact!" said the gentleman. And "Fact, fact, 
fact ! " repeated Thomas Gradgrind. 

" You are to be in all things regulated and governed," said the 
gentleman, " by fact. We hope to have before long, a board of 
fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people 
to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must dis- 
card the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with 
it. You are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what 
would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers 
in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. 
You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch 
upon your crockery ; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign 
birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with 
quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quad- 
rupeds represented upon walls. You must use," said the gentle- 
man, "for all these purposes, combinations and modifications 
(in primary colors) of mathematical figures which are susceptible 
of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is 
fact. This is taste." 

The girl courtesyed, and sat down. She was very young, and 
she looked as if she were frightened by the matter of fact prospect 
the world afforded. 

"Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild," said the gentleman, "will pro- 
ceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, 
at your request, to observe his mode of procedure." 

Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. "Mr. M'Choakumchild, we 
only wait for you." 

So, Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and 



254 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

some onehundred and forty other schoolmasters, had been lately 
turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same princi- 
ples, like so many pianoforte legs. He had been put through an 
immense variety of paces and had answered volumes of head- 
breaking questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, and 
prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general cosmog- 
raphy, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-sur- 
veying and leveling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were 
all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony 
way into Her Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council's Schedule 
B, and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathe- 
matics and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. 
He knew^ all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever 
they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the 
names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, 
manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their bound- 
aries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass. 
Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had only learned a 
little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much 
more ? 

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Mor- 
giana in the Forty Thieves;-^ looking into all the vessels ranged 
before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, 
good M'Choakumchild, when from thy boiling store, thou shalt 
fill each jar brim full, by and by, dost thou think that thou wilt 
always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within— or some- 
times only maim him and distort him? 

Mr. Gradgrind walked homeward from the school, in a stateof 
considerable satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it 
to be a model. He intended every child in it to be a model— just 
as the young Gradgrinds w^ere all models. 

There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every 
one. They had been lectured at, from their tenderest years; 
coursed like little hares. Almost as soon as they could run alone, 
they had been made to run to the lecture room. The first object 
with which they had an association, or of which they had a 



CHARLES DICKENS. 255 

remembrance, was a large black board with a dry Ogre chalking 
ghastly white figures on it. 

Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an 
Ogre. Fact forbid ! I only use the word to express a monster in 
a lecturing castle, with Heaven knows how many heads manip- 
ulated into one, taking childhood captive and dragging it into 
gloomy statistical dens by the hair. 

No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon ; it was 
up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Grad- 
grind had ever learned the silly jingle. Twinkle, twinkle, little 
star; how I wonder what you are! No little Gradgrind had 
ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind having 
at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a professor Owen, 
and driven Charles' Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. No 
little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that 
famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who 
worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that 
yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb; it had never 
heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a 
cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadruped with several 
stomachs. 

To his matter of fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, 
Mr. Gradgrind directed his steps. He had virtually retired from 
the wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and 
was now looking about for a suitable opportunity of making an 
arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated 
on a moor within a mile or two of a great town— called Coke- 
town in the present faithful guide book. 

A very regular feature on the face of the country. Stone Lodge 
was. Not the least disguise toned down or shaded off that 
uncompromising fact in the landscape. A great square house 
with a heavy portico darkening the principal windows, as its 
master's heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, 
cast up, balanced, and proved house. Six windows on this 
side of the door, six on that side; a total of twelve in this 
wing, a total of twelve in the other wing; four and twenty 



256 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

carried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden and an in- 
fant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical account book. 
Gas and ventilation, drainage and water service, all of the 
primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, fireproof from top 
to bottom ; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with all their 
brushes and brooms ; everything that heart could desire. 

Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had 
cabinets in various departments of science, too. They had a 
little conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, 
and a little minera logical cabinet, and the specimens were all 
arranged and labeled, and the bits of stone and ore looked as 
though they might have been broken from the parent substances 
by those tremendously hard instruments, their own names; and, 
to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never 
found his way into their nursery. If the greedy little Gradgrinds 
grasped at more than this, what was it for good gracious good- 
ness' sake, that the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at ! 

Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. 
He was an affectionate father, after his manner; but he would 
probably have described himself (if he had been put, like Sissy 
Jupe, upon a definition) as '' an eminently practical " father. He 
had a particular pride in the phrase " eminently practical," which 
was considered to have a special application to him. Whatso- 
ever the public meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever the 
subject of such meeting, some Coketowner was sure to seize the 
occasion of alluding to his eminently practical friend Gradgrind. 
This always pleased the eminently practical friend. He knew it 
to be his due, but his due was acceptable. 

He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the 
town, which was neither town nor country, and yet was either 
spoiled, when his ears were invaded by the sound of music. The 
clashing and banging band attached to the horse-riding estab- 
lishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, 
was in full bray. A flag, floating from the summit of the tem- 
ple, proclaimed to mankind that it was " Sleary's Horse-riding" 
which claimed their suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout modern 



CHARLES DICKENS. 257 

statue with a money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche o! 
early Gothic architecture, took the money. Miss Josephine 
Sleary, as some very long and very narrow strips of printed bill 
announced, was then inaugurating the entertainments with her 
graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act. Among the other pleas- 
ing but always strictly moral wonders which must be seen to be 
believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to "elucidate the di- 
verting accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog 
Merr^degs." He was also to exhibit "his astounding feat of 
throwing seventy-five hundredweight in rapid succession back- 
handed over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in 
midair, a feat never before attempted in this or any other 
country, and which, having elicited such rapturous plaudits 
from enthusiastic throngs, it cannot be withdrawn." The same 
Signor Jupe was to " enliven the varied performances at frequent 
intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts." Last- 
ly, he was to wind them up by appearing in his favorite char- 
acter of Mr. William Button, of Tooley street, in "the highly 
novel and laughable hippo-comedietta of The Tailor's Journey 
to Brentford." 

Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities, of course, 
but passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brush- 
ing the nois3^ insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to 
the House of Correction. But the turning of the road took him 
by the back of the booth, and at the back of the booth a number 
of children were congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes, 
striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place. 

This brought him to a stop. "Now, to think of these vaga- 
bonds," said he, "attracting the young rabble from a model 
school." 

A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him 
and the young rabble, he took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat 
to look for any child he knew by name, and might order off. 
Phenomenon almost incredible, though distinctly seen, what did 
he then behold but his own metallurgical Louisa, peeping 
with all her might through a hole in a deal board, and his own 

2 T. L.— 17 



258 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

mathematical Thomas, abasing; himself on the ground to catch 
but a hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act! 

Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot 
where his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each 
erring child, and said : 

"Louisa! Thomas!!" 

Both rose, red and disconcerted. But Louisa looked at her 
father with more boldness than Thomas did. Indeed, Thomas 
did not look at him, but gave himself up to be taken home like a 
machine. 

*'Iu the name of wonder, idleness, and folly! " said Mr. Grad- 
grind, leading each away by a hand; " what do you do here? " 

" Wanted to see what it was like," returned Louisa, shortly. 

"What it was like?" 

"Yes, father." 

There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and partic- 
ularly in the girl ; yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of 
her face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with 
nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself 
somehow, which brightened its expression. Not with the bright- 
ness natural to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubt- 
ful flashes, which had something painful in them, analogous to 
the changes on a blind face groping its way. 

She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day 
would seem to become a woman all at once. Her father thought 
so as he looked at her. She was pretty. Would have been self- 
willed (bethought in his eminently practical way), but for her 
bringing up. 

" Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it difficult 
to believe that you, with your education and resources, should 
have brought your sister to a scene like this." 

" I brought him, father," said Louisa, quickly. " I asked him 
to come." 

" I am sorry to hear it. I am very sorry indeed to hear it. It 
makes Thomas no better, and it makes you worse, Louisa." 

She looked at her father again, but no tear fell down her cheek. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 259 

" You ! Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is 
open; Thomas and you, who may be said to be replete with facts ; 
Thomas and you, who have been trained to mathematical exact- 
ness; Thomas and you, here!" cried Mr. Gradgrind. "In this 
degraded position! I am amazed." 

"I was tired, father. I have been tired a longtime," said 
Louisa. 

" Tired ! Of what? " asked the astonished father. 

"I don't know of what — of everything I think." 

" Say not another word," returned Mr. Gradgrind. " You are 

childish. I will hear no more." He did not speak again until 

they had walked some half a mile in silence, when he gravely 

broke out with : "What would your best friends say, Louisa? 

Do you attach no value to their good opinion? What would 

Mr. Bounderbysay?" 

******* 

"Bounderby," said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing a chair to the 
fireside, "you are always so interested in my young people — 
particularly in Louisa — that I make no apology for saying to 
you, I am very much vexed by this discovery. I have systematic- 
ally devoted myself (as you know) to the education of the rea- 
son of my familj^ The reason is (as you know^) the only faculty 
to which education should be addressed. And yet, Bounderby, it 
would appear from this unexpected circumstance of to-day, 
though in itself a trifling one, as if something had crept into 
Thomas' and Louisa's minds which is — or rather, which is not — 
I don't know that I can express myself better than by saying — 
which has never been intended to be developed, and in which 
their reason has no part." 

" There certainly is no reason in looking with interest at a 
parcel of vagabonds," returned Bounderby. "When I was a 
vagabond myself, nobody looked with any interest at me; I 
know that." 

"Then comes the question," said the eminently practical 
father, with his eyes on fire, " in what has this vulgar curiosity 
its rise?" 



260 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

" I'll tell you in what. In idle imagination." 

"I hope not," said the eminently practical. "I confess, how- 
ever, that the misgiving has crossed me on my way home." 

"In idle imagination, Gradgrind," repeated Bounderby. "A 
very bad thing for anybody, but a cursed bad thing for a girl 
like Louisa. I should ask Mrs. Gradgrind 's pardon for strong 
expressions, but that she knows very well I am not a refined 
character. Whoever expects refinement in rne will be disap- 
pointed. I hadn't a refined bringing up." 

"Whether," said Mr. Gradgrind, pondering with his hands in 
his pockets, and his cavernous eyes on the fire, " whether any in- 
structor or servant can have suggested anything? Whether 
Louisa or Thomas can have been reading anything? Whether, 
in spite of all precautions, any idle story-book can have got into 
the house? Because in minds that have been practically formed 
by rule and line, from the cradle upwards, this is so curious, so 
incomprehensible." 

"Stop a bit!" cried Bounderby, who all this time had been 
standing, as before, on the hearth, bursting at the very furniture 
of the room with explosive humility. "You have one of those 
strollers' children in the school." 

"Cecilia Jupe, by name," said Mr. Gradgrind, with something 
of a stricken look at his friend. 

"Now, stop a bit ! " cried Bounderby again. "How did she 
come there?" 

" Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself, for the first time, only 
just now. She especially applied here at the house to be admit- 
ted, as not regularly belonging to our town, and — yes, you are 
right, Bounderby, you are right." 

"Now, stop a bit I" cried Bounderby, once more. "Louisa 
saw her when she came? " 

" Louisa certainly did see her, for she mentioned the applica- 
tion to me. But Louisa saw her, I have no doubt, in Mrs. Grad- 
grind's presence." 

"Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind," said Bounderby, "what passed?" 

"Oh, my poor health ! " returned Mrs. Gradgrind. " The girl 



CHARLES DICKENS. 261 

wanted to come to the school, and Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to 
come to the school, and Louisa and Thomas both said that the 
girl wanted to come, and that ]\Ir. Gradgrind wanted girls to 
come, and how was it possible to contradict them when such was 
the fact!" 

<'Now I tell you what, Gradgrind!" said Mr. Bounderby. 
''Turn this girl to the rightabout, and there's an end of it." 

" I am much of jowr opinion." 

"Do it at once," said Bounderby, "has always been my mot- 
to from a child. When I thought I would run away from my 
egg-box and my grandmother, I did it at once. Do you the 
same. Do this at once ! " 

"Are you walking?" asked his friend. " I have the father's 
address. Perhaps you would not mind walking to town with 
me?" 

"Not the least in the world," said Mr. Bounderby, "as long 
as you do it at once ! " 

So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat— he always threw it on, 
as expressing a man who had been far too busily employed in 
making himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his hat— and 
with his hands in his pockets, sauntered out into the hall. "I 
never wear gloves," it was his custom to say. "I didn't climb 
up the ladder in them. Shouldn't be so high up, if I had." 

Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while Mr. 
Gradgrind went upstairs for the address, he opened the door of 
the children's study and looked into that serene floor-clothed 
apartment, which, notwithstanding its book-cases and its cabi- 
nets audits variety of learned and philosophical appliances, had 
much of the genial aspect of a room devoted to hair cutting. 
Louisa languidly leaned upon the window looking out, without 
looking at anything, while young Thomas stood sniffing re- 
vengefully at the fire. Adam Smith and Malthus, two younger 
Gradgrinds, were out at a lecture in custody; and little Jane, 
after manufacturing a good deal of moist pipeclay on her face 
with slate-pencil and tears, had fallen asleep over vulgar frac- 
tions. 



262 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

"It's all right now, Louisa; it's all right, young Thomas," 

said Mr. Bounderby; ''you won't do so any more. I'll answer 

for its being all over with father." 

******* 

Coketown, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now 
walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy 
in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, 
Coketown, before pursuing our tune. 

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been 
red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it ; but as matters stood 
it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of 
a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out 
of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for 
ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in 
it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast 
piles of buildings full of windows where there was a rattling and a 
trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam engine 
worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant 
in a state of melancholy madness. It contained several large 
streets, all very like one another, and many small streets still 
more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one an- 
other, who all went in and out at the same hours, with the same 
sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to 
whom every day was the same as yesterday and to-morrow, and 
every year the counterpart of the last and the next. 

These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable 
from the work by which it was sustained; against them were to 
be set off comforts of life which found their way all over the 
world, and elegancies of life which made, we will not ask how 
much of the fine lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the place 
mentioned. The rest of its features were voluntary, and they 
were these. 

You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. 
If the members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there — 
as the members of eighteen religious persuasions had done— they 
made it a pious warehouse of red brick, with sometimes (but 



CHARLES DICKENS. 263 

this is only in highly ornamented examples) a bell in a bird cage 
on the top of it. The solitary exception was the New Church ; a 
stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating 
in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All the public 
inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe characters 
of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, the 
infirmary might have been the jail, the town hall might have 
been either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared 
to the contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, fact, 
fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, 
fact, everywhere in the immaterial. The M'Choakumchild 
school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the 
relations between master and man were all fact, everything was 
fact, and what you couldn't state in figures, or show to be 
purchasable in the cheapest market and salable in the dearest, 
was not, and never should be, world without end. Amen. 

A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, 
of course got on well ? Why no, not quite well. No ? Dear me ! 

No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in all 
respects, like gold that had stood the fire. First, the perplexing 
mystery of the place was. Who belonged to the eighteen denomi- 
nations? Because, whoever did, the laboring people did not. 
It was very strange to walk through the streets on a Sunday 
morning, and note how few of them the barbarous jangling of 
bells, that was driving the sick and nervous mad, called away 
from their own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the 
corners of their own streets, where they lounged listlessly, gazing 
at all the church and chapel going, as at a thing with which they 
had no manner of concern. Nor was it merely the stranger who 
noticed this, because there was a native organization in Coke- 
town itself, whose members were to be heard of in the House of 
Commons every session, indignantly petitioning for acts of par- 
liament that should make these people religious by main force. 
Then came the Teetotal Society, who complained that these same 
people PTOu/Jget drunk, and showed in tabular statements that 
they did get drunk, and proved at tea parties that no induce- 



264 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ment, huraan or Divine (except a medal), would induce them to 
forego their custom of getting drunk. Then came the chemist 
and druggist, with other tabular statements, showing that when 
they didn't get drunk, they took opium. Then came the ex- 
perienced chaplain of the jail, with more tabular statements, out- 
doing all the previous tabular statements, and showing that the 
same people would resort to low haunts, hidden from the public 
eye, where they heard low singing and saw low dancing, and may- 
hap Joined in it; and where A. B., aged twenty-four next birth- 
day, and committed for eighteen months' solitary, had himself 
said (not that he had ever shown himself particularly worthy of 
belief) his ruin began, as he was perfectly sure and confident that 
otherwise he would have been a tiptop moral specimen. Then 
came Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the two gentlemen at 
this present moment walking through Coketown, and both emi- 
nently practical, who could, on occasion, furnish more tabular 
statements derived from their own personal experience, and il- 
lustrated by cases they had known and seen, from which it clearly 
appeared— in short, it was the only clear thing in the case — that 
these same people were a bad lot altogether, gentlemen; that do 
what you would for them, they were never thankful for it, gentle- 
men; that they were restless, gentlemen ; that they never knew 
what they wanted ; that they lived upon the best, and bought 
fresh butter ; and insisted on Mocha coffee, and rejected all but 
prime parts of meat, and yet were eternally dissatisfied and un- 
manageable. In short, it was the moral of the old nursery fable : 

There was an old woman, and what do you think? 
She hved upon nothing but victuals and drink; 
Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet, 
And yet this old woman would never be quiet. 

Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between 
the case of the Coketown population and the case of the little 
Gradgrinds? Surely, none of us in our sober senses and ac- 
quainted with figures, are to be told at this time of day, that one 
of the foremost elements in the existence of the Coketown work- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 265 

ing people had been for scores of years deliberately set at nought? 
That there was any Fancy in them demanding to be brought into 
healthy existence, instead of struggling on in convulsions ? That 
exactly in the ratio as they worked long and monotonously, the 
craving grew within them for some physical relief— some relaxa- 
tion, encouraging good humor and good spirits, and giving them 
a vent— some recognized holiday, though it were but for an honest 
dance to a stirring band of music— some occasional light pie in 
which even M'Choakumchild had no finger — which craving must 
and would be satisfied aright, or must and would inevitably go 
wrong, until the laws of Creation were repealed ? 

" This man lives at Pod's End, and I don't quite know Pod's 
End," said Mr. Gradgrind. '< Which is it Bounderby?" 

Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere down town, but 
knew no more respecting it. So they stopped for a moment, 
looking about. 

Almost as they did so, there came running round the cor- 
ner of the street, at a quick pace and with a frightened look, 
a girl whom Mr. Gradgrind recognized. "Halloa!" said he. 
<'Stop! Where are you going? Stop!" Girl number twenty 
stopped then, palpitating, and made him a courtesy. 

'' Why are you tearing about the streets," said Mr. Grad- 
grind, "in this improper manner?" 

"I was— I was run after, sir," the girl panted, "and I 
wanted to get away." 

"Run after?" repeated Mr. Gradgrind. "Who would run 
after jou?'" 

The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered for 
her, by the colorless boy, Bitzer, who came round the corner 
with such blind speed and so little anticipating a stoppage on 
the pavement, that he brought himself up against Mr. Grad- 
grind's waistcoat and rebounded into the road. 

"What do you mean, boy?" said Mr. Gradgrind. "What 
are you doing? How dare you dash against— everybody in 
this manner? " 

Bitzer picked up his cap, which the concussion had knocked 



266 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

off, and backing, and knuckling his forehead, pleaded that it 
was an accident. 

"Was this boy running after you, Jupe?" asked Mr. Grad- 
grind. 

" Yes, sir," said the girl reluctantly. 

<<No, I wasn't, sir!" cried Bitzer. ''Not till she ran away 
from me. But the horse-riders never mind what they say, sir; 
they're famous for it. You know the horse-riders are famous 
for never minding what they say," addressing Sissy. "It's as 
well known in the town as— please sir, as the multiplication table 
isn't known to the horse-riders." Bitzer tried Mr. Bounderby 
with this. 

"He frightened me so," said the girl, "with his cruel faces! " 

"Oh," cried Bitzer. "Oh! An't you one of the rest! An't 
you a horse-rider! I never looked at her, sir. I asked her if 
she would know how to define a horse to-morrow, and offered 
to tell her again, and she ran away, and I ran after her, sir, 
that she might know how to answer when she was asked. You 
wouldn't have thought of saying such mischief if you hadn't been 
a horse-rider ! " 

"Her calling seems to be pretty well known among 'em," ob- 
served Mr. Bounderby. "You'd have had the whole school 
peeping in a row, in a week." 

"Truly. I think so," returned his friend. " Bitzer, turn you 
about and take yourself home. Jupe, stay here a moment. Let 
me hear of your running in this manner any more, boy, and you 
will hear of me through the master of the school. You understand 
what I mean. Go along." 

The boy stopped in his rabid blinking, knuckled his forehead 
again, glanced at Sissy, turned about, and retreated. 

"Now, girl," said Mr. Gradgrind, "take this gentleman and 
me to your father's; we are going there. What have you got in 
that bottle you are carrying ? " 

"Gin," said Mr. Bounderby. 

" Dear, no, sir! It 's the nine oils." 

«The what?" cried Mr. Bounderby. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 267 

<<The nine oils, sir. To rub father with." Then said Mr. 
Bounderbj^ with a loud short laugh, "what thedevil do yourub 
your father with nine oils for?" 

" It 's what our people always use, sir, when they get any hurts 
in the ring," replied the girl, looking over her shoulder, to assure 
herself that her pursuer was gone. "They bruise themselves very 
bad, sometimes." 

"Serve 'em right," said Mr. Bounderb^^, "for being idle." 
She glanced up at his face, with mingled astonishment and dread. 

" By George! " said Mr. Bounderby, "when I was four or five 
years younger than you, I had worse bruises upon me than ten 
oils, twenty oils, forty oils, would have rubbed off. I didn't get 
'em by posture-making, but by being banged about. There was 
no rope-dancing for me ; danced on the bare ground and was lar- 
ruped with the rope." 

Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so 
rough a man as Mr. Bounderby. His character was not unkind, 
all things considered; it might have been a very kind one indeed, 
if he had only made some round mistake in the arithmetic that 
balanced it years ago. He said, in what he meant for a reassur- 
ing tone, as they turned down a narrow road, "And this is 
Pod's End; isit, Jupe?" 

"This is it, sir, and — if you wouldn't mind, sir — this is the 
house." 

She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little public 
house, with dim red lights in it. As haggard and as shabby as 
if, for want of custom, it had itself taken to drinking, and had 
gone the way all drunkards go, and was very near the end of it. 

"It 's only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs if you 
wouldn't mind, and waiting there for a moment till I geta candle. 
If you should hear a dog, sir, it 's only Merrylegs, and he only 
barks." 

"Merrylegs and nine oils, eh ! " said Mr. Bounderby, entering 
last with his metallic laugh. " Pretty well this, for a self-made 
man!" 

The name of the public house was the Pegasus' Arms. The 



268 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Pegasus' legs might have been more to the purpose; but, under- 
neath the winged horse upon the signboard, the Pegasus' Arms 
was inscribed in Roman letters. Beneath that inscription again, 
in a flowing scroll, the painter had touched off the lines : 

Good malt makes good beer, 
Walk in, and they'll draw it here ; 
Good wine makes good brandy. 
Give us a call, and youll find it handy. 

Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar 
was another Pegasus— a theatrical one— with real gauze let in for 
his wings, golden stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal 
harness made of red silk. 

As it had grown too dusky without to see the sign, and as it 
had not grown light enough within to see the picture, Mr. Grad- 
grind and Mr. Bounderby received no offense from these ideal- 
ities. They followed the girl up some steep corner-stairs without 
meeting anyone, and stopped in the dark while she went on for 
a candle. They expected every moment to hear Merrylegs give 
tongue, but the highly trained performing dog had not barked 
w^hen the girl and the candle appeared together. 

"Father is not in our room, sir," she said, with a face of great 
surprise. "Ifyou wouldn't mind walkingin, I'll find him directly." 

They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, 
sped away with a quick, light step. It was a mean, shabbily 
furnished room, with a bed in it. The white nightcap, embel- 
lished with two peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt upright, in 
which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the varied 
performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts, hung 
upon a nail; but no other portion of his w^ardrobe, or other 
token of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to 
Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal 
who went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut 
out of it, for any sign of a dog that was manifest to the eye or 
ear in the Pegasus' Arms. 

They heard the doors of rooms above opening and shutting, 
as Sissy went from one to another in quest of her father ; and pres- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 269 

ently they heard voices, expressing surprise. She came bound- 
ing down again in a great hurry, opened a battered and mangy 
old hair trunk, found it empty, and looked round with her hands 
clasped and her face full of terror. 

"Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I don't 
know why he should go there, but he must be there; I'll bring 
him in a minute ! " She was gone directly, without her bonnet ; 
with her long, dark, childish hair streaming behind her. 

''What does she mean?" said Mr. Gradgrind. "Back in a 

minute? It's more than a mile off." 

* ***** « 

" Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, 
and then was seen to slip out himself, with his hat over his eyes, 
and a bundle tied up in a handkerchief under his arm. She will 
never believe it of him, but he has cut away, and left her." 

"Pray," said Mr. Gradgrind, "why will she never believe it 
of him?" 

" Because those two were one. Because they were never asun- 
der. Because, up to this time, he seemed to dote upon her," 

said Childers, taking a step or two to look into the empty trunk. 

***** * * 

"Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed her," said 
Childers, giving his hair another shake, as he looked up from the 
empty box. " Now, he leaves her without anything to take to." 

« It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to 
express that opinion," returned Mr. Gradgrind, approvingly. 

' ' / never apprenticed ? I was apprenticed when I was seven 
year old." 

"Oh! Indeed?" said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as 
having been defrauded of his good opinion. "I was not aware 
of its being the custom to apprentice young persons to—" 

"Idleness," Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. "No, 
by the Lord Harry I Nor I ! " 

"Her father always had it in his head," resumed Childers, 
feigning unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby 's existence, "that 
she was to be taught the duce-and-all of education. How it got 



270 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

into his head, I can't say; I can only say that it never got out. 
He has been picking up a bit of reading for her, here — and a bit 
of writing for her, there— and a bit of ciphering for her, some- 
where else— these seven years." 

Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his pockets, 
stroked his face and chin, and looked, with a good deal of doubt 
and a little hope, at Mr. Gradgrind. From the first he had 
sought to conciliate that gentleman, for the sake of the 
deserted girl. 

"When Sissy got into the school here," he pursued, "her 
father was as pleased as Punch. I couldn't altogether make out 
why, myself, as we were not stationary here, being but comers and 
goers anywhere. I suppose, however, he had this move in his 
mind — he was always half-cracked — and then considered her pro- 
vided for. If you should happen to have looked in to-night, 
for the purpose of telling him that you were going to do her any 
little service," said Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and re- 
peating his look, "it would be very fortunate and well-timed; 
Ferj fortunate and well-timed." 

" On the contrary," returned Mr. Gradgrind, "I came to tell 
him that her connections made her not an object for the school, 
and that she must not attend anymore. Still, if her father really 
has left her, without any connivance on her part— Bounderby, let 
me have a word with you." Upon this, Mr. Childers politely be- 
took himself, with his equestrian walk, to the landing outside 
the door, and there stood stroking his face and softly whistling. 
While thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in Mr. Boanderby's 
voice as " No, I say no. I advise you not. I say by no means." 
While, from Mr. Gradgrind, he heard in his much lower tone the 
words, " But even as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit, 
which has been the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and 

ends in. Think of it, Bounderby, in that point of view." 
***** * * 

Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the room as she had run 
out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their 
looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable 



CHARLES DICKENS. 271 

cry, and took refuge on the bosom of the most accomphshed 

tight-rope lady, who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and to 

weep over her. 

* ****** 

"0 my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? 
You are gone to try to do me some good, I know! You are 
gone away for my sake, I am sure. And how miserable and help- 
less you will be without me, poor, poor father, until you come 
back ! " It was so pathetic to hear her say many things of this 
kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched out 
as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace 
it, that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bouuderby (growing im- 
patient) took the case in hand. 

''Now, good people all," said he, "this is wanton waste of 
time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it from 
me, if you like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, 
whats' your name ! Your father has absconded — deserted 
you— and you mustn't expect to see him again as long as you 
live." 

They cared so little for plain fact, these people, and were in 
that advanced state of degeneracy on the subject, that, instead 
of being impressed by the speaker's strong common sense, they 
took it in extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered " shame!" 
and the women '' brute ! " 

"It is of no moment," said Gradgrind, "whether this person 
is to be expected back at any time, or the contrary. He is gone 
away, and there is no present expectation of his return. That, 
I believe, is agreed on all hands." 

" Thath agreed, Thquire. Thick to that ! " From Sleary. 

"Well then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor 
girl, Jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, 
in consequence of there being practical objections, into which I 
need not enter, to the reception there of the children of persons 
so employed, am prepared in these altered circumstances to 
make a proposal. I am willing to take charge of you, Jupe, 
and to educate you, and provide for you. The only condition 



272 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

(over and above your good behavior) I make is, that you decide 
now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. Also, 
that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you com- 
municate no more with any of your friends who are here present. 

These observations comprise the whole of the case." 

* * * * * * * 

Mr. Gradgrind then remarked : 

*' The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way 
of influencing your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have 
a sound practical education, and that even your father himself 
(from what I understand) appears, on your behalf, to have 
known and felt that much." 

The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in 
her wild crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and 
turned her face full upon her patron. The whole company per- 
ceived the force of the change, and drew a long breath together, 

that plainly said, '' she will go ! " 

****** * 

"Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe," Mr. Gradgrind 
cautioned her. "I say no more. Be sure you know your own 
mind ! " 

" When father comes back," cried the girl, bursting into tears 
again, after a minute's silence, "how will he ever find me if I go 
away! " 

"You may be quite at ease," said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he 

worked out the whole matter like a sum : "you may be quite at 

ease, Jupe, on that score." 

* * * * * * * 

There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing 

with her hands before her face, " Oh give me my clothes, give me 

my clothes, and let me go away before I break my heart ! " 
***** * * 

Let us strike the keynote again, before pursuing the tune. 

When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been 
overheard to begin a conversation with her brother one day, by 
saying, " Tom, I wonder "—upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was 



CHARLES DICKENS. 273 

the person overhearing, stepped forth into the light, and said, 
" Louisa, never wonder ! " 

Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of 
educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the 
sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By means of addi- 
tion, subtraction, multiplication, and division, settle everything 
somehow, and never wonder. Bring to me, says M'Choakum- 
child, yonder baby just able to walk and I will engage that it 
shall never wonder. 

Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, there hap- 
pened to be in Coketown a considerable population of babies 
who had been walking against time, towards the infinite world, 
twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years and more. These portentous 
infants being alarming creatures to stalk about in any human 
society, the eighteen denominations incessantly scratched one 
.another's faces and pulled one another's hair by way of agreeing 
on the steps to be taken for their improvement— which they never 
did; a surprising circumstance, when the happy adaptation of the 
means to the end is considered. Still, although they differed in 
every other particular, conceivable and inconceivable (especially 
inconceivable) , they were pretty well united on the point that 
these unlucky infants were never to wonder. Body number one 
said they must take everything on trust. Body number two said 
they must take everything on political economy. Body number 
three wrote leaden little books for them, showing how the 
good grown-up baby invariably got to the Savings bank, and the 
bad grown-up baby invariably got transported. Body number 
four, under dreary pretences of being droll (when it was very 
melancholy indeed), made the shallowest pretences of concealing 
pitfalls of knowledge, into which it was the duty of these babies 
to be smuggled and inveigled. But all the bodies agreed that 
they were never to wonder. 

There was a library in Coketown, to which general access was 
easy. Mr. Gradgrind greatly tormented his mind about what 
the people read in this library : a point whereon little rivers of 
tabular statements periodically flowed into the howling ocean of 

2 T. L.— 18 



2?4 THE TJ^ACHER IN LITERATURE. 

tabular statements, which no diver ever got to any depth in and 
came up sane. It was a disheartening circumstance, but a mel- 
ancholy fact, that even these readers persisted in wondering. 
They wondered about human nature, human passions, human 
hopes and fears, the struggles, triumphs and defeats, the cares 
and joys and sorrows, the lives and deaths, of common men and 
women ! They sometimes, after fifteen hours' work, sat down to 
read mere fables about men and women, more or less like them- 
selves, and about children , more or less like their own. They took 
De Foe to their bosoms, instead of Euclid, and seemed to be on 
the whole more comforted by Goldsmith than by Cocker. Mr. 
Gradgrind was forever working, in print and out of print, at 
this eccentric sum, and he never could make out how it yielded 
this unaccountable product. 

"I am sick of my life. Loo. I hate it altogether, and I hate 
everybody except you," said the unnatural young Thomas 
Gradgrind in the hair-cutting chamber at twilight. 

'' You don't hate Sissy, Tom ? " 

'< I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe. And she hates me," said 
Tom moodily. 

''No she does not, Tom, I am sure." 

*' She must," said Tom. " She must just hate and detest the 
whole set-out of us. They'll bother her head off, I think, before 
they have done with her. Already she 's getting as pale as wax, 
and as heavy as— I am." 

Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting astride of a 
chair before the fire, with his arms on the back, and his sulky 
face on his arms. His sister sat in the darker corner by the 
fireside, now looking at him, now looking at the bright sparks 
as they dropped upon the hearth. 

''As to me," said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner of ways 
with his sulky hands, " I am a Donkey, that 's what /am. I am 
as obstinate as one, I am more stupid than one, I get as much 
pleasure as one, and I should like to kick like one." 

" Not me, I hope Tom ? " 

" No, Loo ; I wouldn't hurt jou. I made an exception of you 



CHARLES DICKENS. 275 

at first. I don't know what this— jolly old— Jaundiced Jail," 
Tom had paused to find a sufficiently complimentary and ex- 
pressive name for the parental roof, and seemed to relieve his 
mind for a moment by the strong alliteration of this one, 
''would be without you." 

" Indeed, Tom ? Do you really and truly say so? " 

<' Why, of course I do. What's the use of talking about it ! " 
returned Tom, chafing his face on his coat sleeve, as if to mortify 
his flesh, and have it in unison with his spirit. 

''Because, Tom," said his sister, after silently watching the 
sparks awhile, "as I get older, and nearer growing up, I often 
sit wondering here, and think how unfortunate it is for me that I 
can't reconcile you to home better than I am able to do. I don't 
know what other girls know. I can't play to you, or sing to you. 
I can't talk to you so as to lighten your mind, for I never see any 
amusing sights or read any amusing books that it would be a 
pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, when you are tired." 

" Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you in that respect ; and 
I am a Mule too, which you're not. If father was determined to 
make me either a Prig or a Mule, and I am not a Prig, wh}^ 
it stands to reason, I must be a Mule. And so I am," said 
Tom, desperately. 

" It 's a great pity," said Louisa, after another pause, and 
speaking thoughtfully out of her dark corner; "it 's a great pity, 
Tom. It 's very unfortunate for both of us." 

"Oh! You," said Tom; "you area girl. Loo, and a girl 
comes out of it better than a boy does. I don't miss anything 
in you. You are the only pleasure I have — you can brighten even 
this place— and you can always lead me as you like." 

" You are a dear brother, Tom ; and while you think I can do 
such things, I don't so much mind knowing better. Though I 
do know better, Tom, and am very sorry for it." She came and 
kissed him, and went back into her corner again. 

" I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much about," 
said Tom, spitefully setting his teeth, "and all the Figures, and 
all the people who found them out; and I wish I could put a 



276 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

thousand barrels of gunpowder under them, and blow them all 
up together ! However, when I go to live with old Bounderby, 
I'll have my revenge." 

" Your revenge, Tom ? " 

" I mean, I'll enjoy myself a little, and go about and see some- 
thing, and hear something. I'll recompense myself for the way 
in which I have been brought up." 

" But don't disappoint yourself beforehand, Tom. Mr. Bound- 
erby thinks as father thinks, and is a great deal rougher, and not 
half so kind." 

" Oh," said Tom, laughing; "I don't mind that. I shall very 
well know how to manage and soothe old Bounderby ! " 

Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those of the 
high presses in the room were all blended together on the wall 
and on the ceiling, as if the brother and sister were overhung by 
a dark cavern. Or, a fanciful imagination — if such treason 
could have been there — might have made it out to be the 
shadow of their subject, and of its lowering association with 
their future. 

''What is your great mode of soothing and managing, Tom? 
Is it a secret? " 

"Oh! " said Tom, "if it is a secret, it 's not far off. It's you. 
You are his little pet, you are his favorite; he'll do anything for 
you. When he says to me what I don't like, I shall say to him, 
' My sister Loo will be hurt and disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. 
She always used to tell me she was sure you would be easier with 
me than this.' That'll bring him about, or nothing will." 

After waiting for some answering remark, and getting none, 
Tom wearily relapsed into the present time, and twined himself 
yawning around and about the rails of his chair, and rumpled 
his head more and more, until he suddenly looked up, and asked : 

"Have you gone to sleep, Loo?" 

" No, Tom. I am looking at the fire." 

" You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I could 
find," said Tom. "Another of the advantages, I suppose, of 
being a girl." 



CHARLES DICKENS. 277 

** Tom," inquired his sister, slowly, and in a curious tone, as 
if she were reading what she asked in the fire, and it were not 
quite plainly written there, '* do you look forward with any sat- 
isfaction to this change to Mr. Bounderby's? " 

" Why, there 's one thing to be said of it," returned Tom, push- 
ing his chair from him, and standing up; " it will be getting away 
from home." 

"There is one thing to be said of it," Louisa repeated in 
her former curious tone; "it will be getting away from home. 
Yes." 

" Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave you, 
Loo, and to leave you here. But I must go, you know, whether I 
like it or not; and I had better go where I can take with me some 
advantage of your influence, than where I should lose it alto- 
gether. Don't you see?" 

*' Yes, Tom." 

The answer was so long in coming, though there was no inde- 
cision in it, that Tom went and leaned on the back of her chair 
to contemplate the fire which so engrossed her, from her point of 
view, and see what he could make of it. 

"Except that it is a fire," said Tom. "It looks to me as stupid 
and blank as everything else looks. What do you see in it ? Not 
a circus?" 

"I don't see anything in it, Tom, particularly. But since I 
have been looking at it, I have been wondering about you and 
me, grown up." 

" Wondering again ! " said Tom. 

"I have such unmanageable thoughts," returned his sister, 
"that they will w^onder." 

" Then I beg of you, Louisa," said Mrs. Gradgrind, who had 
opened the door without being heard, "to do nothing of that 
description, for goodness' sake, you inconsiderate girl, or I shall 
never hear the last of it from your father. And Thomas, it is 
really shameful, with my poor head continually wearing me out, 
that a boy brought up as you have been, and whose education 
has cost what yours has, should be found encouraging his sister 



278 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

to wonder, when he knows his father has expressly said that she 
is not to do it." 

Louisa denied Tom's participation in the offense; but her 
mother stopped her with the conclusive answer, " Louisa, don't 
tell me, in my state of health ; for unless you had been encour- 
aged, it is morally and physically impossible that you could have 
done it." 

" I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at the 
red sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening and dying. 
It made me think, after all, how short my life would be, and how 
little I could hope to do in it." 

"Nonsense! " said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost energetic. 
"Nonsense! Don't stand there and tell me such stuff, Louisa, 
to my face, when you know very well that if it was ever to reach 
your father's ears, I should never hear the last of it. After all 
the trouble that has been taken with you ! After the lectures 
you have attended, and the experiments you have seen ! After I 
have heard you myself, when the whole of my right side has been 
benumbed, going on with your master about combustion, and 
calcination, and calorification, and I may say every kind of ation 
that could drive a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talk in 
this absurd way about sparks and ashes! I wish," whimpered 
Mrs. Gradgrind, taking a chair, and discharging her strongest 
point before succumbing under these mere shadows of facts, 
"yes, I really do wish that I had never had a family, and then 
you would have known what it was to do without me ! " 

Sissy Jupe had not an easy time of it between Mr. M'Choak- 
umchild and Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong im- 
pulses, in the first months of her probation, to run away. It 
hailed facts all day long so very hard, and life in general was 
opened to her as such a closely ruled ciphering book, that as- 
suredly she would have run away, but for only one restraint. 

It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the result 
of no arithmetical process, was self-imposed in defiance of all 
calculation, and went dead against any table of probabilities 
that any Actuary would have drawn up from the premises, 



CHARLES DICKENS. 279 

The girl believed that her father had not deserted her; she 
lived in the hope that he would come back, and in the faith 
that he would be made the happier by her remaining where she 
was. 

The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this conso- 
lation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing, on a sound 
arithmetical basis, that her father was an unnatural vagabond, 
filled Mr. Gradgrind with pity. Yet, what was to be done? 
M'Choakumchild reported that she had a very dense head for 
figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of the globe, 
she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact measure- 
ments; that she was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, 
unless some pitiful incident happened to be connected there- 
with; that she would burst into tears on being required (by the 
mental process) immediately to name the cost of two hundred 
and forty-seven muslin caps at fourteen pence halfpennj^; that she 
was as low down, in the school, as low could be ; that after eight 
weeks of induction into the elements of Political Economy, she 
had only yesterday been set right by a prattler three feet high, for 
returning to the question, "What is the first principle of this 
science?" the absurd anwer, " To do unto others as I would that 
they should do unto me." 

Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was 
very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at 
the mill of know-ledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, re- 
port, and tabular statements A to Z; and that Jupe "must be 
kept to it." So Jupe was kept to it, and became low-spirited, but 
no wiser. 

" It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa! " she said 
one night, when Louisa had endeavored to make her perplexities 
for next day something clearer to her. 

" Do you think so ? " 

"■ I should know so much. Miss Louisa. All that is difficult to 
me now, would be so easy then." 

" You might not be the better for it. Sissy." 

Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, " I should not be the 



280 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

worse, Miss Louisa." To which Miss Louisa answered, "I don't 
know that," 

There had been so little communication between these two — 
both because life at Stone Lodge went monotonously round like 
a piece of machinery which discouraged human interference, and 
because of the prohibition relative to Sissy's past career— that 
they were still almost strangers. Sissy, with her dark eyes won- 
deringly directed to Louisa's face, was uncertain whether to say 
more or to remain silent. 

" You are more useful to my mother, and more pleasant with 
her than I can ever be," Louisa resumed. " You are pleasanter 
to yourself, than /am to my self." 

'' But, if you please, Miss Louisa," Sissy pleaded, " I am— Oh, 
so stupid ! " 

Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, told her she would 
be wiser by and by. 

"You don't know," said Sissy, half crying, "what a stupid 
girl I am. All through school hours I make mistakes. Mr. and 
Mrs. M'Choakumchild call me up, over and over again, regularly 
to make mistakes. I can't help them. They seem to come 
natural to me." 

"Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild never make any mistakes 
themselves, I suppose, Sissy?" 

" Oh no ! " she eagerly returned. " They know everything." 

"Tell me some of your mistakes." 

"I am almost ashamed," said Sissy, with reluctance. "But 
to-day, for instance, Mr. M'Choakumchild was explaining to us 
about Natural Prosperity." 

"National, I think it must have been,'" observed Louisa. 

"Yes, it was. But isn't it the same?" she timidly asked. 

"You had better say National, as he said so," returned 
Louisa, with her dry reserve, 

"National Prosperity. And he said, ' Now, this school room is 
a Nation, And in this nation there are fifty millions of money. 
Isn't this a prosperous nation ? Girl number twenty, isn't this a 
prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state? ' " 



CHARLES DICKENS. 281 

"What did you say? " asked liouisa. 

<'Miss Louisa, I said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't 
know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I 
was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the 
money, and whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing 
to do with it. It was not in the figures at all," said Sissy, wip- 
ing her eyes. 

" That was a great mistake of yours," observed Louisa. 

''Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. M'Choak- 
urachild said he would try me again. And he said, ' This school- 
room is an immense town, and in it there are a million of in- 
habitants, and only five and twenty are starved to death in the 
streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that 
proportion?' And my remark was— for I couldn't think of a bet- 
ter one— that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who 
were starved, whether the others were a million or a miUion 
million. And that was wrong, too." 

" Of course it was." 

" Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he would try me once more. 
And he said, ' Here are the stutterings— ' " 

"Statistics," said Louisa. 

"Yes, Miss Louisa— they always remind me of stutterings, and 
that's another of my mistakes— of accidents upon the sea. ' And 
I find (Mr. M'Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hun- 
dred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only 
five hundred of them were drowned or burnt to death. What is 
the percentage? ' And I said , Miss," here Sissy fairly sobbed as 
confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest error, "I said 
it was nothing." 

"Nothing, Sissy?" 

" Nothing, Miss— to the relations and friends of the people who 
were killed. I shall never learn," said Sissy. " And the worst of 
all is, that, although my poor father wished me so much to learn, 
and although I am so anxious to learn, because he wished me to, 
I am afraid I don't like it." 

Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest head, as it 



282 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

dropped abashed before her, until it was raised again to glance 
at her face. Then she asked : 

" Did your father know so much himself, that he wished jou 
to be well taught, too. Sissy?" 

Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed her 
sense that they were entering on forbidden ground, that Louisa 
added, " No one hears us ; and if anyone did, I am sure no harm 
could be found in such an innocent question." 

<' No, Miss Louisa," answered Sissy, upon this encouragement, 
shaking her head; "father knows very little indeed. It's as 
much as he can do to write ; and it 's more than people in general 
can do to read his writing. Though it 's plain to me." 

''Your mother?" 

'' Father says she was quite a scholar. She died when I was 
born. She was — " Sissy made the terrible communication 
nervously ; " she was a dancer." 

" Did your father love her?" Louisa asked these questions 
with a strong, wild, wandering interest peculiar to her ; an in- 
terest gone astray like a banished creature, and hiding in soli- 
tary places. 

"Oh yes! As dearly as he loves me. Father loved me, first, 
for her sake. He carried me about with him when I was quite 
a baby. We have never been asunder from that time." 

" Yet he leaves you now. Sissy? " 

*' Only for my good. Nobody understands him as I do ; 
nobody knows him as I do. When he left me for my good — he 
never would have left me for his own — I know he was almost 
broken-hearted with the trial. He will not be happy for a single 
minute, till becomes back." 

" Tell me more about him," said Louisa. "I will never ask you 
again. Where did you live ? " 

" We traveled about the country, and had no fixed place to 
live in. Father's a—" Sissy whispered the awful word, "a 
clown." 

"To make the people laugh? " said Louisa, with a nod of 
intelligence, 



CHARLES DICKENS, 283 

''Yes. But they wouldn't laugh sometimes, and then father 
cried. Lately, they very often wouldn't laugh, and he used to 
come home despairing. Father's not like most. Those who 
didn't know him as well as I do, and didn't love him as dearly as 
I do, might believe he was not quite right. Sometimes they 
played tricks upon him; but they never knew how he felt 
them, and shrunk up, when he was alone with me. He was 
far, far timider than they thought ! " 

" And you were his comfort through everything ? " 

She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. *'Ihope 
so, and father said I was. It was because he grew so scared 
and trembling, and because he felt himself to be a poor, weak, 
ignorant, helpless man (those used to be his words), that he 
wanted me so much to know a great deal, and be different 
from him. I used to read to him to cheer his courage, and he 
was very fond of that. They were wrong books— I am never to 
speak of them here— but we didn't know there was any harm in 
them." 

''And he liked them?" said Louisa, with her searching gaze 
on Sissy all this time. 

" 0, very much ! They kept him, many times, from what did 
him real harm. And often and often of a night, he used to forget 
all his troubles in wondering whether the Sultan would let the 
lady go on with the story, or would have her head cut off before 
it was finished." 

"And your father was always kind? To the last ?" asked 
Louisa, contravening the great principle, and wondering very 
much. 

"Always, always!" returned Sissy, clasping her hands. 
"Kinder and kinder than I can tell. He was angry only one 
night, and that was not at me, but Merrylegs. Merrylegs," she 
whispered the awful fact, " is his performing dog." 

" Why was he angry with the dog?" Louisa demanded. 

"Father, soon after they came home from performing, told 
Merrylegs to jump up on the backs of the two chairs, and stand 
across them— which is one of hi^ tricks. He looked at father, and 



284 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

didn't do it at once. Everything of father's had gone wrong 
that night, and he hadn't pleased the public at all. He cried out 
that the very dog knew he was failing, and had no compassion 
on him. Then he beat the dog, and I was frightened, and said, 
< Father, father! Pray don't hurt the creature who is so 
fond of you! Heaven forgive you, father, stop!' And he 
stopped, and the dog was bloody, and father lay down cry- 
ing on the floor, with the dog in his arms, and the dog licked 
his face." 

Louisa saw that she was sobbing; and going to her, kigsed 
her, took her hand, and sat down beside her. 

''Finish by telling me how your father left you, Sissy. Now 
that I have asked you so much, tell me the end. The blame, if 
there is any blame, is mine, not yours." 

" Dear Miss Louisa," said Sissy, covering her eyes, and sob- 
bing yet: "I came home from the school that afternoon, and 
found poor father just come home too, from the booth. And he 
sat rocking himself over the fire, as if he was in pain. And I said, 
'Have you hurt yourself, father?' (as he did sometimes, like 
they all did), and he said, 'A little, my darling.' And when I 
came to stoop down, and look up at his face, I saw that he was 
crying. The more I spoke to him, the more he hid his face ; and 
at first he shook all over, and said nothing but ' My darling,' 
and 'My love!'" 

Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at the two with a 
coolness not particularly savoring of interest in anything but 
himself, and not much of that at present. 

"I am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom," observed his sister. 
" You have no occasion to go away; but don't interrupt us for a 
moment, Tom dear." 

"Oh I very well!" returned Tom. " Only father has brought 
old Bounderby home, and I want you to come into the drawing- 
room. Because if you come, there 's a good chance of old Bound 
erby's asking me to dinner; and if you don't, there's none." 

"I'll come directly." 

" I'll wait for you," said Tom, " to make sure." 



chahles dickens. 285 

Sissy resumed in a lower voice : '* At last poor father said that 
he had given no satisfaction again, and never did give any sat- 
isfaction now, and that he was a shame and disgrace, and I 
should have done better without him all along. I said all the 
affectionate things to him that came into my heart, and presently 
he was quiet and I sat down by him, and told him all about the 
school and everything that had been said and done there. When 
I had no more left to tell, he put his arms round my neck, and 
kissed me a great many times. Then he asked me to fetch some 
of the stuff he used, for the little hurt he had had, and to get it 
at the best place, w^hich w^as at the other end of town from there ; 
and then, after kissing me again, he let me go. When I had gone 
down-stairs, I turned back that I might be a little bit more com- 
pany to him yet, and looked in at the door, and said, ' Father 
dear, shall I take Merrylegs? ' Father shook his head and said. 
* No, Sissy, no ; take nothing that 's known to be mine, my dar- 
ling; ' and I left him sitting by the fire. Then the thought must 
have come upon him, poor, poor, father! of going away to try 
something for my sake; for, when I came back, he was gone." 

<'Isay! Look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo! "Tom remon- 
strated. 

"There 's no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I keep the nine oils 
ready for him, and I know he will come back. Every letter that 
I see in Mr. Gradgrind's hand takes my breath away and blinds 
my eyes, for I think it comes from father, or from Mr. Sleary 
about father. Mr. Sleary promised to write as soon as ever father 
should be heard of, and I trust to him to keep his word." 

"Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo ! " said Tom, with an 
impatient whistle. " He'll be off if you don't look sharp ! " 

After this, whenever Sissy dropped a courtesy to Mr. Gradgrind 
in the presence of his family, and said in a faltering way, *' I beg 
your pardon, sir, for being troublesome— but— Imve you had any 
letter yet about me ? " Louisa would suspend the occupation -of 
the moment, whatever it was, and look for the reply as earnestly 
as Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind regularly answered, ''No, 
Jupe, nothing of the sort," the trembling of Sissy's lip would be 



286 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

repeated in Louisa's face, and her ejes would follow Sissy with 
compassion to the door. Mr. Gradgrind usually improved these 
occasions by remarking, when she was gone, that if Jupe had 
been properly trained from an early age she would have demon- 
strated to herself, on sound principles, the baselessness of these 
fantastic hopes. Yet it did seem (though not to him, for he saw 
nothing of it) as if fantastic hope could take as strong a hold as 
Fact. 

This observation must be limited exclusively to his daughter. 
As to Tom, he was becoming that not unprecedented triumph of 
calculation which is usually at work on number one. As to Mrs. 
Gradgrind, if she said anything on the subject, she would come a 
little way out of her wrappers, like a feminine dormouse, and 
say: 

''Good gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed and 
worried by that girl Jupe's so perseveringly asking, over and 
over again, about her tiresome letters ! Upon my word and hon- 
or, I seem to be fated, and destined, and ordained, to live in the 
midst of things that I am never to hear the last of. It really is 
a most extraordinary circumstance that it appears as if I never 
was to hear the last of anything ! " 

At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind's eye would fall upon her; 
and under the influence of that wintry piece of fact, she would 
become torpid again. 



" I fear, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind, "that your continuance 
at the school any longer, would be useless." 

" I am afraid it would, sir," Sissy answered with a courtesy. 

" I cannot disguise from you, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind, 
knitting his brow, "that the result of your probation there has 
disappointed me; has greatly disappointed me. You have not 
acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild, anything like that 
amount of exact knowledge which I looked for. You are ex- 
tremely deficient in your facts. Your acquaintance with figures is 
very limited. You are altogether backward and below the mark." 



CBARLES DICKENS. 287 

** I am sorry, sir," she returned ; " but I know it is quite true. 
Yet I have tried hard, sir." 

"Yes," said Mr. Gradgrind, "yes, I believe you have tried 
hard; I have observed you, and I can find no fault in that re- 
spect." 

<' Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes," Sissy very 
timid here, ''that perhaps I tried to learn too much, and that 
if I had asked to be allowed to try a little less, I might 
have — "' 

''No, Jupe, no," said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his 
profoundest and most eminently practical way. "No. The 
course you pursued, you pursued according to the system — the 
system — and there is no more to be said about it. I can only 
suppose that the circumstances of your early life were too un- 
favorable to the development of your reasoning powers, and that 
we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am disap- 
pointed." 

"I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of 
your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, 
and of your protection of her." 

" Don't shed tears," said Mr. Gradgrind. " Don't shed tears. 
I don't complain of you. You are an affectionate, earnest, good 
young woman, and — and we must make that do." 

"Thank you, sir, very much," said Sissy, with a grateful 
courtesy. 

" You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a generally per- 
vading way) you are serviceable in the family also ; so I under- 
stand from Miss Louisa, and, indeed, so I have observed myself. 
I therefore hope," said Mr. Gradgrind, " that you can make your- 
self happy in those relations." 

" I should have nothing to wish, sir, if—" 

"I understand you," said Mr. Gradgrind; "you still refer to 
your father. I have heard from Miss Louisa that you still pre- 
serve that bottle. Well ! If your training in the science of arriv- 
ing at exact results had been more successful, you would have 
been wiser on these points. I will say no more." 



288 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Old Oheeseman's School. 

(From "Stories," by Charles Dickens.) 

Being rather young at present— I am getting on in years, but 
still I am rather young— I have no particular adventures of my 
own to fall back upon. It wouldn't much interest anybody here, 
I suppose, to know what a screw the Reverend is, or what a 
griffin she is, or how they do stick it into parents — particularly 
hair-cutting, and medical attendance. One of our fellows was 
charged in his half's account, twelve and sixpence for two pills — 
tolerably profitable at six and threepence apiece, I should think 
—and he never took them either, but put them up the sleeve of 
his jacket. 

As to the beef, it 's shameful. It 's not beef. Regular beef isn't 
veins. You can chew regular beef. Besides which, there 's gravy 
to regular beef, and you never see a drop to ours. Another of our 
fellows went home ill, and heard the family doctor tell his father 
that he couldn't account for his complaint unless it was the beer. 
Of course it was the beer, and well it might be! 

However, beef and Old Cheeseman are two different things. So 
is beer. It was Old Cheeseman I meant to tell about ; not the 
manner in which our fellows get their constitutions destroyed for 
the sake of profit. 

Why, look at the pie-crust alone. There 's no fiakiness in it. 
It 's solid — like damp lead. Then our fellows get nightmares, and 
are bolstered for calling out and waking other fellows. Who can 
wonder ! 

Old Cheeseman one night walked in his sleep, put his hat on 
over his night cap, got hold of a fishing-rod and a cricket bat, 
and went down into the parlor, where they naturally thought, 
from his appearance, he was a ghost. Why, he never would have 
done that if his meals had been wholesome. When we all begin 
to walk in our sleeps, I suppose they'll be sorry for it. 

Old Cheeseman wasn't second Latin master then; he was a fel- 
low himself. He was first brought there, very small, in a post- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 289 

chaise, by a woman who was always taking snuff and shaking 
him — and that was the most he remembered about it. He never 
went home for the hoHdays. His accounts (he never learnt any 
extras) were sent to a bank, and the bank paid them ; and he 
had a brown suit twice a year, and went into boots at twelve. 
They were always too big for him, too. 

In the midsummer holidays, some of our fellows who lived 
within walking distance, used to come back and climb the trees 
outside the playground wall, on purpose to look at Old Cheese- 
man reading there by himself. He was always as mild as the tea 
—and that\s pretty mild, I should hope!— so when they whis- 
tled to him, he looked up and nodded; and when they said, 
'•Hallo, Old Cheeseman, what have you had for dinner?" he 
said, " Boiled mutton; " and when they said, *' An't it solitary, 
Old Cheeseman? " he said, " It is a little dull sometimes ; " and 
then they said, ''Well, good-by, Old Cheeseman!" and climbed 
down again. Of course it was imposing on Old Cheeseman to 
give him nothing but boiled mutton through a whole vacation, 
but that was just like the system. When they didn't give him 
boiled mutton, they gave him rice pudding, pretending it was 
a treat. And saved the butcher. 

So Old Cheeseman went on. The holidays brought him into 
other trouble besides the loneliness ; because, when the fellows be- 
gan to come back, not wanting to, he was always glad to see 
them ; which was aggravating when they were not at all glad 
to see him, and so he got his head knocked against walls, and 
that was the way his nose bled. But he was a favorite in gen- 
eral. Once a subscription was raised for him; and to keep up 
his spirits, he was presented before the holidays with two white 
mice, a rabbit, a pigeon, and a beautiful puppy. Old Cheeseman 
cried about it— especially soon afterwards, when they all ate 
one another. 

Of course Old Cheeseman used to be called by the names of all 
sorts of cheeses— Double Glo'sterman, Family Cheshireman, 
Dutchman, North Wiltshireman, and all that. But he never 
minded it. And I don't mean to say he was old in point of years 

2 T. L.— 19 



290 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

— because he wasn't— only he was called from the first, Old 
Cheeseman. 

At last, Old Cheeseman was made second Latin master. He was 
brought in one morning at the beginning of a new half, and pre- 
sented to the school in that capacity as " Mr. Cheeseman." Then 
our fellows all agreed that Old Cheeseman was a spy, and a 
deserter, who had gone over to the enemy's camp, and sold him- 
self for gold. It was no excuse for him that he had sold himself 
for very little gold — two pound ten a quarter, and his washing, as 
was reported. It was decided by a Parliament which sat about 
it, that Old Cheeseman's mercenary motives could alone be 
taken into account, and that he had" coined our blood for drach- 
mas." The Parliament took the expression out of the quarrel 
scene between Brutus and Cassius, 

When it was settled in this strong way that Old Cheeseman 
was a tremendous traitor, who had wormed himself into our fel- 
lows' secrets on purpose to get himself into favor by giving up 
everything he knew, all courageous fellows were invited to come 
forward and enroll themseh^es in a society for making a set 
against him. The president of the society was first boy, named 
Bob Tarter. His father was in the West Indies, and he owned, 
himself, that his father was worth millions. He had great power 
among our fellows, and he wrote a parody, beginning 

** Who made believe to be 80 meek 
That we could hardly hear him speak, 
Yet turned out an informing sneak ? 

Old Cheeseman" 

— and on in that way through more than a dozen verses, which he 
used to go and sing, every morning, close by the new master's desk. 
He trained one of the low boys, too, a rosy-cheeked little Brass, 
who didn't care what he did, to go up to him with his Latin Gram- 
mar one morning, and say it so: Noniinativus prononiinuin — 
Old Cheeseman, raro expriinitur — was never suspected, nisi dis- 
tinctionis — of being an informer, aiit emphasis gratiti — until he 
proved one. Ut — for instance, Yos damimstis — when he sold the 



CHARLES DICKENS. 291 

boys. Quasi — a s though, c?i(?at — he should say, Pretwrea nemo — 
I'm a Judas ! All this produced a great effect on Old Cheeseman. He 
had never had much hair; but what he had, began to get thinner 
and thinner every day. He grew paler and more worn; and 
sometimes of an evening he was seen sitting at his desk with a 
precious long snuff to his candle, and his hands before his face, 
crying. But no member of the societ}^ could pity him, even if he 
felt inclined, because the president said it was Old Cheeseman's 
conscience. 

So Old Cheeseman went on, and didn't he lead a miserable life! 
Of course the Reverend turned up his nose at him, and of 
course she did — because both of them always do that at all the 
masters— but he suffered from the fellows most, and he suffered 
from them constantly. He never told about it, that the society 
could find out ; but he got no credit for that, because the presi- 
dent said it was Old Cheeseman's cowardice. 

He had only one friend in the world; and that one was almost 
as powerless as he was, for it was only Jane. Jane was a sort 
of wardrobe woman to our fellows, and took care of the boxes. 
She had come at first, I believe, as a kind of apprentice— some of 
our fellows say from a Charity, but /don't know — and after her 
time was out, had stopped at so much a yenr. So little a year, 
perhaps, I ought to say, for it is far more likel3^ However, she 
had put some pounds in the saving's bank, and she was a very 
nice young woman. She was not quite pretty ; but she had a 
very frank, honest, bright face, and all our fellows were fond 
of her. She was uncommonly neat and cheerful, and uncom- 
monly comfortable and kind. And if anything was the mat- 
ter with a fellow's mother, he always went and showed the letter 
to Jane. 

Jane was Old Cheeseman's friend. The more the society went 
against him, the more Jane stood by him. She used to give him 
a good-humored look out of her stillroom window, sometimes, 
that seemed to set him up for the day. She used to pass out of 
the orchard and the kitchen garden (always kept locked, 1 believe 
you!) through the playground, when she might have gone the 



292 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

other way, only to give a turn of her head, as much as to say 
*' Keep up your spirits ! " to Old Cheeseman. His slip of a room 
was so fresh and orderly that it was well known who looked 
after it while he was at his desk ; and when our fellows saw a 
smoking hot dumpling on his plate at dinner, they knew with 
indignation who had sent it up. 

Under these circumstances, the society resolved, after a quan- 
tity of meeting and debating, that Jane should be requested 
to cut Old Cheeseman dead; and that if she refused, she must be 
sent to Coventry herself. So a deputation, headed by the 
president, was appointed to wait on Jane, and inform her of 
the vote the society had been under the painful necessity of pass- 
ing. She was very much respected for all her good qualities, 
and there was a story about her having once waylaid the Rever- 
end in his own study, and got a fellow off from severe punishment, 
of her own kind, comfortable heart. So the deputation didn't 
much like the job. However, they went up, and the president 
told Jane all about it. Upon which Jane turned very red, burst 
into tears, informed the president and the deputation, in a way 
not at all like her usual way, that they were a parcel of mali- 
cious young savages, and turned the whole respected body out 
of the room. Consequently it was entered in the societ^^'s book 
(kept in astronomical cipher for fear of detection), that all com- 
munication with Jane was interdicted ; and the president ad- 
dressed the members on this convincing instance of Old Cheese- 
man's undermining. 

But Jane was as true to Old Cheeseman as Old Cheeseman was 
false to our fellows— in their opinion, at all events— and stead- 
ily continued to be his only friend. It was a great exaspera- 
tion to the society, because Jane was as much a loss to them 
as she was a gain to him; and being more inveterate against 
him than ever, thej^ treated him worse than ever. At last, one 
morning, his desk stood empty, his room was peeped into, and 
found to be vacant, and a whisper went about among the pale 
faces of our fellows that old Cheeseman, unable to bear it any 
longer, had got up early and drowned himself. 



CHARLES DICKENS. 293 

The mysterious looks of the other masters after breakfast, and 
the evident fact that Old Cheeseman was not expected, confirmed 
the society in this opinion. Some began to discuss whether the 
president was liable to hangin^^ or only transportation for life, 
and the president's face showed a great anxiety to know which. 
However, he said that a jury of his country should find him 
game; and that in his address he should put it to them to lay 
their hands upon their hearts and say whether they, as 
Britons, approved of informers, and how they thought they 
would like it themselves. Some of the society considered that he 
had better run away until he found aforest where he might change 
clothes with a woodcutter, and stain his face with blackberries; 
but the majority believed that if he stood his ground, his father 
—belonging as he did to the West Indies, and being worth mil- 
lions—could buy him off. 

All our fellows' hearts beat fast when the Reverend came in, and 
made a sort of a Roman, or a field marshal, of himself with the 
ruler; as he always did before delivering an address. But their 
fears were nothing to their astonishment when he came out with 
the story that Old Cheeseman, "so long our respected friend and 
fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge," he called him 
— yes ! I dare say ! Much of that ! — " was the orphan child of a 
disinherited young lady who had married against her father's 
wish, and whose young husband had died, and who had died of 
sorrowherself, and whose unfortunate baby (Old Cheeseman) had 
been brought up at the cost of a grandfather, who would never 
consent to see it, baby, boy, or man; which grandfather was now 
dead," and serve him right— that's in j putting in— "and whicli 
grandfather's large property, there being no will, was now, and 
all of a sudden and forever. Old Cheeseman's! Our so long re- 
spected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowl- 
edge," the Reverend wound up a lot of bothering quotations by 
saying, " would 'come among us once more' that day fortnight, 
when he desired to take leave of us himself, in a more particular 
manner." With these words, he stared severely round at our 
fellows, and went solemnly out. 



294 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

There was precious consternation among the members of the 
society, now. Lots of them wanted to resign, and lots more 
began to try to make out that they had never belonged to it. 
However, the president stuck up, and said that they must stand 
or fall together, and that if a breach was made it should be over 
his body — which was meant to encourage the society, but it 
didn't. The president further said, he would consider the posi- 
tion in which they stood, and would give them his best opinion 
and advice in a few days. This was eagerly looked for, as he 
knew a good deal of the world on account of his father's being in 
the West Indies. 

After days and days of hard thinking, and drawing armies all 
over his slate, the president called our fellows together, and 
made the matter clear. He said it was plain that when Old 
Cheeseman came on the appointed day, his first revenge would be 
to impeach the society, and have it flogged all round. After wit- 
nessing with joy the torture of his enemies, and gloating over 
the cries which agony would extort from them, the probability 
was that he would invite the Reverend, on pretense of conversa- 
tion, into a private room — say the parlor into which parents 
were shown, where the two great globes were which were never 
used — and would there reproach him with the various frauds and 
oppressions he had endurea at his hands. At the close of his 
observations he would make a signal to a prizefighter concealed in 
the passage, who would then appearand pitch into the Reverend, 
till he was left insensible. Old Cheeseman would then make Jane a 
present of from five to ten pounds, and would leave the establish- 
ment in fiendish triumph. 

The president explained that against the parlor part, or the 
Jane part, of these arrangements he had nothing to say; but on 
the part of the society, he counseled deadly resistance. With 
this view he recommended that all available desks should be filled 
with stones, and that the first word of the complaint should be 
the signal to every fellow to let fly at Old Cheeseman. The bold 
advice put the society in better spirits, and was unanimously 
taken. A post about Old Cheeseman's size was put up in the 



CHARLES DICKENS. 295 

playground, and all our fellows practiced at it till it was dinted 
all over. 

When the day came, and places were called, every fellow sat 
down in a tremble. There had been much discussing and disput- 
ing as to how Old Cheeseman would come; but it was the general 
opinion that he would appear in a sort of triumphal car drawn 
by four horses, with two livery servants in front, and the prize- 
fighter in disguise up behind. So, all our fellows sat listening for 
the sound of wheels. But no wheels were heard, for Old Cheese- 
man walked after all, and came into the school without any prep- 
aration. Pretty much as he used to be, only dressed in black. 

"Gentlemen," said the Reverend, presenting him, "our so 
long respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of 
knowledge, is desirous to offer a word or two. Attention, gentle- 
men, one and all!" 

Every fellow stole his hand into his desk and looked at the 
president. The president was all ready, and taking aim at Old 
Cheeseman with his eyes. 

What did Old Cheeseman then, but walk up to his old desk, 
look round him with a queer smile as if there was a tear in his 
eye, and begin in a quavering mild voice, "My dear companions 
and old friends ! " 

Every fellow's hand came out of his desk, and the president 
suddenly began to cry. 

" My dear companions and old friends," said Old Cheeseman, 
"you have heard of my good fortune. I have passed so many 
years under this roof — my entire life so far, I may say — that 
I hope you have been glad to hear of it for my sake. I could 
never enjoy it without exchanging congratulations with you. If 
we have ever misunderstood one another at all, pray, my dear 
boys, let us forgive and forget. I have a great tenderness for 
you, and I am sure you return' it. 1 want, in the fullness of a 
grateful heart, to shake hands with you, everyone. I have come 
back to do it, if you please, my dear boys." 

Since the president had begun to cry, several other fellows had 
broken out here and there; but now, when Old Cheeseman began 



296 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

with him as first boy, laid his left hand affectionately on his 
shoulder and gave him his right; and when the president said, 
" Indeed, I don't deserve it, sir; upon my honor I don't," there 
was sobbing and crying all over the school. Every other fellow 
said he didn't deserve it, much in the same way ; but Old Cheese- 
man, not minding that a bit, went cheerfully round to every boy, 
and wound up with every master — finishing off the Reverend last. 

Then a sniveling little chap in a corner, who was always un- 
der some punishment or other, set up a shrill cry of "Success 
to Old Cheeseman ! Hooray ! " The Reverend glared upon him, 
and said, "i¥r. Cheeseman, sir." But Old Cheeseman protest- 
ing that he liked his old name a great deal better than his new 
one, all our fellows took up the cry; and, for I don't know 
how many minutes, there was such a thundering of feet and 
hands, and such a roaring of "Old Cheeseman," as never was 
heard. 

After that there was a spread in the dining room of the most 
magnificent kind. Fowls, tongues, preserves, fruits, confection- 
eries, jellies, neguses, barley sugar temples, trifles, crackers — eat all 
you can and pocket what you like — all at Old Cheeseman's ex- 
pense. After that, speeches, whole holiday, double and treble 
sets of all manners of things for all manners of games, donkeys, 
pony chaises and drive yourself, dinner for all the masters at the 
Seven Bells (twenty pounds a head our fellows estimated it at), 
an annual holiday and feast fixed for that day every year, and 
another on Old Cheeseman's birthday— Reverend bound down 
before the fellows to allow it, so that he could never back out- 
all at Old Cheeseman's expense. 

And didn't our fellows go down in a body and cheer outside 
the Seven Bells? O, no! 

But there's something else besides. Don't look at the next 
story-teller, for there's more yet. Next day, it was resolved that 
the society should make it up with Jane, and then be dissolved. 
What do you think of Jane being gone, though! "What? 
Gone forever ? " said our fellows, with long faces. "Yes, to be 
sure," was all the answer they could get. None of the people 



CHARLES DICKENS. 297 

about the house would say anything more. At length, the first 
boy took upon himself to ask the Reverend whether our old 
friend Jane was really gone? The Reverend (he has got a 
daughter at home— turn-up nose, and red) replied severely, 
"Yea, sir, Miss Pitt is gone." The idea of calling Jane Miss Pitt! 
Some said she had been sent away in disgrace for taking money 
from Old Cheeseman ; others said she had gone into Old Cheese- 
man's service at a rise of ten pounds a year. All that our fel- 
lows knew was, she was gone. 

It was two or three months afterwards, when, one afternoon, 
an open carriage stopped at the cricket field, just outside 
bounds, with a lady and gentleman in it, who looked at the game 
a long time and stood up to see it played. Nobody thought 
much about them, until the same little sniveling chap came in, 
against all rules, from the post where he was scout, and said, 
"It's Jane!" Both elevens forgot the game directly, and ran 
crowding round the carriage. It was Jane! In such a bonnet ! 
And if you'll believe me, Jane was married to Old Cheeseman. 

It soon became quite a regular thing when our fellows were 
hard at it in the playground, to see a carriage at the low part of 
the wall where it joins the high part, and a lady and gentleman 
standing up in it, looking over. The gentleman was always 
Old Cheeseman, and the lady was always Jane. 

The first time I ever saw them, I saw them in that way. 
There had been a good many changes among our fellows then, 
and it had turned out that Bob Tarter's father wasn't worth 
millions! He wasn't worth anything. Bob had gone for a 
soldier, and Old Cheeseman had purchased his discharge. But 
that's not the carriage. The carriage stopped, and all our fel- 
lows stopped as soon as it was seen. 

" So you have never sent me to Coventry, after all ! " said the 
lady, laughing, as our fellows swarmed up the wall to shake 
hands with her. "Are you never going to do it? " 

"Never! never! never!" on all sides. 

I didn't understand what she meant then, but of course I do 
now. I was very much pleased with her face though, and with 



298 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

her good way, and T couldn't help looking at her — and at him, 
too— with all our fellows clustering so joyfully about them. 

They soon took notice of me as a new boy, so I thought I 
might as well swarm up the wall myself, and shake hands with 
them as the rest did. I was quite as glad to see them as the rest 
were, and was quite as familiar with them in a moment. 

''Only a fortnight now," said Old Cheeseman, "to the holi- 
days. Who stops? Anybody?" 

A good many fingers pointed at me, and a good many voices 
cried " He does ! " For it was the year when you were all away; 
and rather low I was about it, I can tell you. 

"Oh!" said Old Cheeseman. "But it's solitary here in the 
holiday time. He had better come to us." 

So I went io their delightful house, and was as happy as I 
could possibly be. They understand how to conduct themselves 
towards boys, they do. When they take a boy to the play, for 
instance, they do take him. They don't go in after it's begun, 
or come out before it 's over. They know how to bring a boy 
up, too. Look at their own! Though he is very little as yet, 
what a capital boy he is ! Why, my next favorite to Mrs. Cheese- 
man and Old. Cheeseman, is young Cheeseman. 

So, now I have told you all I know about Old Cheeseman. 
And it's not much, after all, I am afraid. Is it? 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

"The fairy tale of human life," says Robert Buchannaii, " as seen first 
and last by this good genie of fiction, seems to us far too delightful to 
find fault with just yet. A huudred years hence, perhaps, we shall have 
it assorted on its proper shelf in the temple of fame. Wo know well 
enough (as, indeed, who does not know?) that it contains much sham 
pathos, atrocious bits of psychological bungling, a little fine writing, 
and a thimbleful of dwaddle; we know (quite as well as the critical know) 
that it is peo])led, not quite by human beings, but by ogres, monsters, 
giants, elves, phantoms, fairies, demons, and will-o'-the-wisps, we know, 
in a word, that it has all the attractions as well as the limitations of 
a story told by a child. For that diviner oddity, which revels in the 
incongruity of the very universe itself, which penetrates to the spheres 
and makes the very angel of death share in the wonderful laughter, 



CHARLES DICKENS. 299 

we must ^o elsewhere— say to Jean Paul,*^ Of the satire, wliich illu- 
minates the inside of life and reveals the secret beating of the heart, which 
unmasks the beautiful and anatomises the ugly, Thackeray is a great- 
er master. But for mere magic, for simple delightful ness, commend us to 
our good genie. He came, when most needed, to tell the whole story of 
life anew, and more funnily than ever; and it seems to us that his child- 
like method has brightened all life, and transformed this awful Lon- 
don of ours— with its startling facts and awful daily phenomena — into 
a castle of dream. He was the greatest work-a-day humorist that ever 
lived. He was the most beneficent good genie that ever wielded a pen." 
As for the charities of Mr. Dickens, multiplied kindnesses which he has 
conferred upon us all, upon our children, upon people educated and unedu- 
cated, upon the mja^iads who speak our common tongue, have not you, 
have not I, all of us, reason to be thankful to this kind friend, who 
soothed and charmed so many hours, brought pleasure and laughter to 
so many homes, made such multitudes of children happy, endowed us 
with such a sweet store of gracious thoughts, fair fancies, soft sympa- 
thies, hearty enjoyments? ... I may quarrel with Mr. Dickens's art a 
thousand and a thousand times; I delight and wonder at his genius: I 
recognize in it — I speak with awe and reverence — a commission from that 
Divine Beneficence whose blessed task we know it will one day be to wipe 
every tear from every eye. Thankfully I take my share of the feast of 
love and kindness which this gentle and generous and charitable soul has 
contributed to the happiness of the world. I take and enjoy my share, 
and say a benediction for the meal. 

William Makepeace Thackeray. 

Were all his books swept by some intellectual catastrophe out of the 
world, there would still exist in the world some score, at least, of peo- 
ple — with all those ways and sayings we are more intimately acquainted 
with than with those of our brothers and sisters — who would owe to him 
their being. While we live and while our children live, Sam Weller and 
Dick Swiveller, Mr. Pecksniff and Mrs. Gamp, the Micawbers and the 
Squeerses, can never die. . . . They are more real than we are our- 
selves, and will outlive and outlast us as they have outlived their creator. 
This is the one proof of genius which no critic, not the most carping or 
dissatisfied, can gainsay. "Blackwood's Magazine." 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 
1771-1832. 

Scott was born of respectable parentage August 15, 1 771, in the city 
of Edinburgh. His childhood years were spent on his grandfather's es- 
tate in Sandy-Knowe, in the fond hope of curing a lameness incurred at 
the age of eighteen months. Near by, were the Eildon Hills, Dry burgh 
Abbey, the murmuring Tweed and Smailholm Tower, whose wonderful 
influence aroused in the boy the chivalric spirit breathing through all 
his poetry. At thirteen he read "Percy's Reliques" to be incited to poetic 
effort, though slow was the flowering. He studied at the High School 
and graduated from the University of Edinburgh, showing some pro- 
ficiency in Latin, but disliking Greek. His delicate health gave him over 
to reading which was insatiable in his younger years, and which stored 
his mind with a vast variety of knowledge. At twenty-one, he was ap- 
prenticed to his father as a writer and studied law. He had a fair 
knowledge of modern languages and made some translations from the 
German. In 1797 he was married. In 180.5, the "Lay of the Last Min- 
strel " appeared, followed by "Marmion" in 1808, and in quick succes- 
sion, all that his poetic nature gave to the world. From 1814 to 1831 
the greatest and most wonderful productions of his brain appeared, to 
charm, instruct and amaze a public, who "hung (and still hang) with 
delight on the varied creations of the potent enchanter." Filled with a 
desire to found a family, and knowing an estate must be had, he began, 
in 1811 , the purchase of the land on which Abbottsford was built. Not- 
withstanding the popularity of his works, bringing enormous returns 
for the times, the business depression of 1826-7 involved his publisher, 
with whom he was a partner, and the sad result followed — an indebt- 
edness of £117,000 engulfed him. He resolved to pay it off by his pen. 
In four years the unprecedented amount of £70,000 was paid, but a 
great mind was ruined, an attack of paralysis came upon him in 1830. 
All efforts to restore him to his former vigor were in vain. The contest 
was soon to end. He died September 21, 1832. 

" It was a beautiful day — so warmi that every window was wide open," 
says Mr. Lockhart, "and so perfectly still that the sound of all others 
most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, 

(300) 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 301 

was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son 
kissed and closed his eyes." He Avas buried at Dryburgh Abbey on the 
2(jth of September following. 

"The last of all the Bards was he, 

AVho sung of Border Chivalry; 

For, well-a-day ! their date was fled, 

His tuneful brethren all were dead." 



" Call it not vain ; they do not err 

Who say, that when the poet dies, 
Mute nature mourns her worshipper, 

And celebrates his obsequies; 
Who say tall chff and cavern lone, 
For the departed bard make moan ; 
That mountains weep in crystal rill; 
That flowers in tears of balm distil; 
Through his loved groves the breezes sigh, 
And oaks, in deeper groans, reply; 
And rivers teach their rushing wave 
To murmur dirges round his grave." 

—The Lay of the Lust Minstrel. 

Dominie Sampson. 

(From "Guy Mannering," by Sm Walter Scott.) 

Abel Sampson was commonly called, from his occupation as 
a pedagogue, Dominie Sampson. He was of low birth, but hav- 
ing evinced, even from his cradle, an uncommon seriousness of 
disposition, the poor parents w^ere encouraged to hope that 
" their bairn,'' as they expressed it, " might wag his pow in a pul- 
pit yet." ^Yith an ambitious view to such a consummation, they 
pinched and pared, rose early and lay down late, ate dry bread 
and drank cold water, to secure to Abel the means of learning. 
Meantime, his tall ungainly figure, his taciturn and grave manners, 
and some grotesque habits of swinging his limbs, and screwing 
his visage while reciting his task, made poor Sampson the ridicule 
of all his school companions. The same qualities secured him at 
Glasgow college a plentiful share of the same sort of notice. 



302 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Half the youthful mob of "the yards "used to assemble regularly 
to see Dominie Sampson (for he had already attained that hon- 
orable title) descend the stairs from the Greek class, with his 
Lexicon under his arm, his long misshapen legs sprawling abroad, 
and keeping awkward time to the play of his immense shoulder- 
blades, as they raised and depressed the loose and threadbare 
black coat which was his constant and only wear. When he spoke, 
the efforts of the professor (professor of divinity though he was) 
were totally inadequate to restrain the inextinguishable laughter 
of the students, and sometimes even to repress his own. The 
long, sallow visage, the goggle eyes, the huge underjaw, which 
appeared not to open and shut by an act of volition, but to be 
dropped and hoisted up again by some complicated machinery 
within the inner man, — the harsh and dissonant voice, and the 
screech-owl notes to which it was exalted when he was exhorted 
to pronounce more distinctly, — all added fresh subject for mirth 
to the torn cloak and shattered shoe, which have afforded legiti- 
mate subjects of raillery against the poor scholar, from Juvenal's 
time downward. It was never known that Sampson either ex- 
hibited irritability at this ill usage, or made the least attempt to 
retort upon his tormentors. He slunk from college by the most 
secret paths he could discover, and plunged himself into his 
miserable lodging, where, for eigh teen-pence a week, he was 
allowed the benefit of a straw mattress, and, if his landlady 
was in a good humor, permission to study his task by her 
fire. Under all these disadvantages, he obtained a competent 
knowledge of Greek and Latin, and some acquaintance with the 
sciences. 

In progress of time, Abel Sampson, probationer of divinity, 
was admitted to the privileges of a preacher. But, alas! partly 
from his own bashfulness, partly owing to a strong and obvious 
disposition to risibility, which pervaded the congregation upon 
his first attempt, he became totally incapable of proceeding in 
his intended discourse — gasped, grinned, hideously rolled his 
eyes till the congregation thought them flying out of his head — 
shut the Bible— stumbled down the pulpit stairs, trampling upon 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 303 

the old women who generally take their station there,— and 
was ever after designated as a "stickit minister." And thus he 
wandered back to his own country, with blighted hopes and 
prospects, to share the poverty of his parents. As he had 
neither friend nor confidant, hardly even an acquaintance, no 
one Iiad the means of observing closely how Dominie Sampson 
bore a disappointment which supplied the w-hole town with a 
week's sport. It would be endless even to mention the nu- 
merous jokes to which it gave birth,— from a ballad, called 
<' Sampson's Riddle," written upon the subject by a smart 
young student of humanity— to the sly hope of the principal, that 
the fugitive had not, in imitation of his mighty namesake, taken 
the college gates along with him in his retreat. 

To all appearance, the equanimit^^ of Sampson was unshaken. 
He sought to assist his parents by teaching a school, and soon 
had plenty of scholars but very few fees. In fact, he taught 
the sons of farmers for what they chose to give him, and the poor 
for nothing; and, to the shame of the former be it spoken, 
the pedagogue's gains never equaled those of a skillful plow- 
man. He wrote, however, a good hand, and added something 
to his pittance by copying accounts and writing letters for El- 
langowan. By degrees, the Laird, who was much estranged 
from general society, became partial to that of Dominie Samp- 
son. Conversation, it is true, was out of the question, but the 
Dominie was a good listener, and stirred the fire with some ad- 
dress. He attempted even to snuff the candles, but was unsuc- 
cessful, and relinquished that ambitious post of courtesy , after hav- 
ing twice reduced the parlor to total darkness. So his civilities, 
thereafter, were confined to taking off his glass of ale in exact- 
ly the same time and measure with the Laird, and in uttering 
certain indistinct murmurs of acquiescence at the conclusion of 
the long and winding stories of Ellangowan. 

On one of these occasions he presented, for the first time, to 
Mannering his tall, gaunt, awkward, bony figure, attired in a 
threadbare suit of olack, with a colored handkerchief, not over 
clean, about his sinewy, scraggy neck, and his nether person 



304 THE TEACHER IN LITERATVUE. 

arrayed in grey breeches, dark-blue stockings, clouted shoes, and 
small copper buckles. 

•X- * * * * * * 

"And now some o' ye maun lay down your watch, and tell me 
the very minute o' the hour the wean's born, and I'll spae its 
fortune." 

"Ay, but, Meg, we shall not want your assistance, for here's 
a student from Oxford that kens much better than you how to 
spae its fortune— he does it by the stars." 

"Certainly, sir," said Mannering, entering into the simple 
humor of his landlord, "I will calculate his nativity according 
to the rule of the Triplicities, as recommended by Pythagoras, 
Hippocrates, Diodes, and Avicenna. Or I will begin ab hora 
questionis, as Haly, Messahala, Ganwehis, and Guido Bonatus, 
have recommended." 

One of Sampson's great recommendations to the favor of Mr. 
Bertram was, that he never detected the most gross attempt at 
imposition, so that the Laird, whose humble efforts at jocularity 
were chiefly confined to what were called bites and bams, since 
denominated hoaxes and quizzes, had the fairest possible subject 
of wit in the unsuspecting Dominie. It is true, he never laughed, 
or Joined in the laugh which his own simplicity afforded — nay, it 
is said he never laughed but once in his life; and on that memora- 
ble occasion his landlady miscarried, partly through surprise at 
the event itself, and partly from terror at the hideous grimaces 
which attended this unusual cachinnation. The only effect which 
the discovery of such impositions produced upon this saturnine 
personage was, to extort an ejaculation of "Prodigious!" or 
"Very facetious ! " pronounced syllabically, but without moving 
a muscle of his own countenance. 

On the present occasion, he turned a gaunt and ghastly stare 
upon the youthful astrologer, and seemed to doubt if he had 
rightly understood his answer to his patron. 

"I am afraid, sir," said Mannering, turning towards him, 
"you may be one of those unhappy persons who, their dim eyes 
being unable to penetrate the starry spheres, and to discern 



SIB WALTER SCOTT. 305 

therein the decrees of heaven at a distance, have their hearts 
barred against conviction by prejudice and misprision." 

''Truly," said Sampson, "I opine with Sir Isaac Newton, 
Knight, and umwhile master of his majesty's mint, that the 
(pretended) science of astrology is altogether vain, frivolous, and 
unsatisfactory." And here he reposed his oracular jaws. 

"Really," resumed the traveler, "I am sorry to see a gentle- 
man of your learning and gravity laboring under such strange 
blindness and delusion. Will you place the brief, the modern, 
and, as I may say, the vernacular name of Isaac Newton, in 
opposition to the grave and sonorous authorities of Dariot, 
Bonatus, Ptolemy, Haly, Eztler, Dieterick, Naibob, Harfurt, 
Zael, Taustettor, Agrippa, Duretus, Maginus, Origen, and 
Argol? Do not Christians and Heathens, and Jews and Gen- 
tiles, and poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry 
influences?" 

"Communis error — it is a general mistake," answered the in- 
flexible Dominie Sampson. 

" Not so," replied the young Englishmen ; " it is a general and 
wellgrounded behef." 

"It is the resource of cheaters, knaves, and cozeners," said 
Sampson. 

'^Abusus non tollit usum; the abuse of anything doth not 
abrogate the lawful use thereof." 

During this discussion, Ellangowan was somewhat like a wood- 
cock caught in his own springe. He turned his face alternately 
from the one spokesman to the other, and began, from the gravity 
with which Mannering plied his adversary, and the learning which 
he displayed in the controversy, to give him credit for being half 
serious. As for Meg, she fixed her bewildered eyes upon the as- 
trologer, overpowered by a jargon more mysterious than her 
own. 

Mannering pressed his advantage, and ran over all the hard 
terms of art which a tenacious memory supplied, and which, 
from circumstances hereafter to be noticed, had been familiar to 
him in early youth. 

2 T. L.— 20 



306 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Signs and planets, in aspects sextile, quartile, trine, conjoined 
or opposite; houses of heaven, with their cusps, hours, and min- 
utes; Almuten, Almochoden, Anahibazon, Catahibazon; a thou- 
sand terms of equal sound and significance, poured thick and 
threefold upon the unshrinking Dominie, whose stubborn incre- 
dulity bore him out against the pelting of this pitiless storm. 

At length the joyful annunciation that the lady had presented 
her husband with a fine boy, and was (of course) as well as could 
be expected, broke off this intercourse. Mr. Bertram hastened to 
the lady's apartment, Meg Merrilies descended to the kitchen to 
secure her share of the groaning malt, and the "ken-no; " and 
Mannering, after looking at his watch, and noting with great 
exactness the hour and minute of the birth, requested, with be- 
coming gravity, that the Dominie w^ould conduct him to some 
place where he might have a view of the heavenly bodies. 

The schoolmaster, without further answer, rose, and threw 
open a door half-sashed with glass, which led to an old-fashioned 
terrace-walk, behind the modern house, communicating with the 
platform on which the ruins of the ancient castle were situated. 
The wind had arisen, and swept before it the clouds which had 
formerly obscured the sky. The moon was high, and at the full, 
and all the lesser satellites of heaven shone forth in cloudless 
effulgence. The scene which their light presented to Mannering 
was in the highest degree unexpected and striking. 

******* 

Mars having dignity in the cusp of the twelfth house, 
threatened captivity, or sudden and violent death, to the native 
and Mannering, having recourse to those further rules by which 
diviners pretend to ascertain the vehemency of this evil direction, 
observed from the result, that three periods would be particularly 
hazardous— his fifth— his tenth—his twenty-Hrst year. 

* * * * * * * 

Mrs. Bertram's first employment, when she became capable 
of a little work, was to make a small velvet bag for the scheme 
of nativity which she had obtained from her husband. Her 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 307 

fingers itched to break the seal, but credulity proved 
stronger than curiosity; and she had the firmness to inclose it, 
in all its integrity, within two slips of parchment, which she 
sewed round it to prevent its being chafed. The whole was then 
put into the velvet bag afore said, and hung as a charm round 
the neck of the infant, where his mother resolved it should re- 
main until the period for the legitimate satisfaction of her curios- 
ity should arrive. 

The father also resolved to do his part by the child, in 
securing him a good education; and with the view that it 
should commence with the first dawnings of reason. Dominie 
Sampson was easily induced to renounce his public profession 
of parish schoolmaster, make his constant residence at the 
Place, and, in consideration of a sum not quite equal to the 
wages of a footman, even at that time, to undertake to com- 
municate to the future Laird of Ellangowan all the erudition 
which he had, and all the graces and accomplishments which — 
he had not, indeed, but which he had never discovered that he 
wanted. In this arrangement the Laird found also his private 
advantage; securing the constant benefit of a patient auditor, 
to whom he told his stories when they were alone, and at 
whose expense he could break a sly jest when he had company. 

About a mile from the house, and upon the verge of the 
woods, which, as we have said, covered a promontory terminat- 
ing in the cape called the Point of Warroch, Kennedy met young 
Harry Bertram, attended by his tutor. Dominie Sampson. He 
had often promised the child a ride upon his galloway; and, 
from singing, dancing, and playing Punch for his amusement, 
was a particular favorite. He no sooner came scampering up 
the path, than the boy loudly claimed his promise; and Kennedy, 
w^ho saw no risk in indulging him, and wished to tease the 
Dominie, in whose visage he read a remonstrance, caught up 
Harry from the ground, placed him before him, and continued 

his route; Sampson's '' Peradventure, Master Kennedy" 

being lost in the clatter of his horse's feet. The pedagogue 
hesitated a moment whether he should go after them ; but Ken- 



308 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

nedjbeing a person in full confidence of the family, and with whom 
he himself had no delight in associating, " being that he was ad- 
dicted unto profane and scurrilous jests," he continued his own 
walk at his own pace, till he reached the Place of Ellangowan. 

The spectators from the ruined walls of the castle were still 
watching the sloop of war, which at length, but not without the 
loss of considerable time, recovered sea. room enough to weather 
the Point of Warroch, and was lost to their sight behind that 
wooded promontory. Some time afterwards the discharges of 
several cannon were heard at a distance, and, after an interval, 
a still louder explosion, as of a vessel blown up, and a cloud of 
smoke rose above the trees, and mingled with the blue sky. All 
then separated on their different occasions, auguring variously 
upon the fate of the smuggler, but the majority insisting that 
her capture was inevitable, if she had not already gone to the 
bottom. 

"It is near our dinner-time, my dear," said Mrs. Bertram to 
her husband; "will it be lang before Mr. Kennedy comes back? '' 

"I expect him every moment, my dear," said the Laird; 
"perhaps he is bringing some of the ofiicers of the sloop with 
him." 

" My stars, Mr. Bertram ! why did not ye tell me this before, 
that we might have had the large round table? and then, they're 
a' tired o' saut meat, and, to tell you the plain truth, a rump 
o' beef is the best part of your dinner — and then I wad have put 
on another gown, and ye wadna have been the wauro' a clean 
neckcloth yoursell. But ye delight in surprising and hurry- 
ing one — I am sure I am no to hand out forever against this 
sort of going on. But when folk's missed, then they are 
moaned." 

"Pshaw! pshaw! deuce take the beef, and the gown, and 
table, and the neckcloth! — we shall do all very well. Where's 
the Dominie, John? — (to a servant who was busy about the 
table) — Where's the Dominie and little Harry?" 

" Mr. Sampson's been at hame these twa hours and mair, but 
I dinna think Mr. Harry cam hame wi' him." 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 309 

"Not come hame wi' him?" said the lady; "desire Mr. Samp- 
son to step this way directly." 

"Mr. Sampson," said she, upon his entrance, "is it not the 
most extraordinary thing in this world wide, that you, that have 
free up-putting— bed, board, and washing— and twelve pounds 
sterling a year, just to look after that boy, should let him out 
of your sight for twa or three hours? " 

Sampson made a bow of humble acknowledgment at each 
pause which the angry lady made in her enumeration of the 
advantages of his situation, in order to give more weight to her 
remonstrance, and then, in words which we will not do him the 
injustice to imitate, told how Mr. Francis Kennedy " had as- 
sumed spontaneously the charge of Master Harry, in despite 
of his remonstrances in the contrary." 

"I am very little obliged to Mr. Francis Kennedy for his 
pains," said the lady peevishly. " Suppose he lets the boy 
drop from his horse, and lames him? or suppose one of the 
cannons comes ashore and kills him?— or suppose" 

"Or suppose, my dear," said Ellangowan, "what is much 
more likely than anything else, that they have gone aboard 
the sloop or the prize, and are to come round the Point with the 
tide?" 

"And then they may be drowned," said the lady. 

''Verily," said Sampson, "I thought Mr. Kennedj^ had re- 
turned an hour since. Of a surety, I deemed I heard his horse's 
feet." 

"That," said John, with a broad grin, "was Grizzel chasing 
the humble-cow* out of the close." 

Sampson colored up to the eyes— not at the implied taunt, 
which he would never have discovered, or resented if he had, but 
at some idea which crossed his own mind. " I have been in an 
error," he said ; "of a surety, I should have tarried for the babe." 
So saying, he snatched his bone-headed cane and hat, and hur- 
ried away towards Warrochwood, faster than he was ever known 
to walk before, or after. 



*A cow without horns. 



310 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

The Laird lingered some time, debating the point with the 
lady. At length he saw the sloop of war again make her appear- 
ance; but, without approaching the shore, she stood away to the 
westward, with all her sails set, and was soon out of sight. The 
lady's state of timorous and fretful apprehension was so habit- 
ual, that her fears went for nothing with her lord and master; but 
an appearance of disturbance and anxiety among the servants 
now excited his alarm, especially when he was called out of the 
room, and told in private that Mr. Kennedy's horse had come to 
the stable door alone, with the saddle turned round below its 
belly, and the reins of the bridle broken; and that a farmer had 
informed them in passing, that there was a smuggling lugger 
burning like a furnace on the other side of the point of Warroch, 
and that, though he had come through the wood, he had seen or 
heard nothing of Kennedy or the young Laird, " only there was 
Dominie Sampson, gaun rampauging about, like mad, seeking 
for them." 

All was now bustle at EUango wan. The Laird and his servants, 
male and female, hastened to the wood of Warroch. The tenants 
and cottagers in the neighborhood lent their assistance, partly 
out of zeal, partly from curiosity. Boats were manned to search 
the sea shore, which, on the other side of the point, rose into 
high and indented rocks. A vague suspicion was entertained, 
though too horrible to be expressed, that the child might have 
fallen from one of these cliffs. 

The evening had begun to close when the parties entered the 
wood, and dispersed different ways in quest of the boy and his 
companion. The darkening of the atmosphere and the hoarse 
sighs of the November wind through the naked trees, the rus- 
tling of the withered leaves which strewed the glades, the repeated 
halloos of the different parties, which often drew them together 
in expectation of meeting the objects of their search, gave a cast 
of dismal sublimity to the scene. 

At length, after a minute and fruitless investigation through 
the wood, the searchers began to draw together into one body 
and to compare notes. The agony of the father grew beyond 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 311 

concealment, yet it scarcely equaled tlie anguish of the tutor. 
<' Would to God I had died for him ! " the affectionate creature 
repeated, in tones of the deepest distress. Those who were less 
interested, rushed into a tumultuary discussion of chances and 
possibilities. Each gave his opinion, and each was alternately 
swayed by that of the others. Some thought the objects of their 
search had gone aboard the sloop ; some, that they had gone to 
a village at three miles distance; some whispered they might 
have been on board the lugger, a few planks and beams of which 
the tide now drifted ashore. 

At this instant, a shout was heard from the beach, so loud, so 
shrill, so piercing, so different from every sound which the woods 
that day had rung to, that nobody hesitated a moment to be- 
lieve that it conveyed tidings, and tidings of dreadful import. 
All hurried to the place, and, venturing without scruple upon 
paths which at another time they would have shuddered to 
look at, descended towards a cleft of the rock, where one boat's 
crew was already landed. "Here, sirs !— here !— this way, for 
God's sake ! — this way ! this way ! " was the reiterated cry. El- 
langowan broke through the throng which had already assem- 
bled at the fatal spot, and beheld the object of their terror. 
It was the dead body of Kennedy. At first sight he seemed to 
have perished by a fall from the rocks, which rose above the spot 
on which he lay, in a perpendicular precipice of a hundred feet 
above the beach. The corpse was lying half in, half out of the 
water; the advancing tide, raising the arm and stirring the 
clothes, had given it at some distance the appearance of motion, 
so that those who first discovered the body thought that life re- 
mained. But every spark had been long extinguished. 

''My bairn! my bairn!" cried the distracted father, " where 
can he be? " A dozen mouths were open to communicate hopes 

which no one felt. Some one at length mentioned the gypsies ! 

In a moment Ellangowan had reascended the cliff, flung himself 
upon the first horse he met, and rode furiously to the huts at 
Derncleugh. All was there dark and desolate; and, as he dis- 
mounted to make more minute search, he stumbled over frag- 



312 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ments of furniture which had been thrown out of the cottages, 
and the broken wood and thatch which had been pulled down 
by his orders. At that moment the prophecy or anathema of 
Meg Merrilies fell heavy on his mind. "You have stripped the 
thatch from seven cottages,— see that the roof-tree of your own 
house stand the surer!" 

''Restore," he cried, "restore my bairn! bring me back my 
son, and all shall be forgot and forgiven !" As he uttered these 
words in a sort of frenzy, his eye caught a glimmering of light in 
one of the dismantled cottages— it was that in which Meg Merri- 
lies formerly resided. The light, which seemed to proceed from 
fire, glimmered not only through the window, but also through 
the rafters of the hut where the roofing had been torn off. 

He flew to the place; the entrance was bolted; despair gave 
the miserable father the strength of ten men; he rushed against 
the door with such violence, that it gave way before the momen- 
tum of his weight and force. The cottage was empty, but bore 
marks of recent habitation; there was fire on the hearth, a ket- 
tle, and some preparation for food. As he eagerly gazed round 
for something that might confirm his hope that his child yet 
lived, although in the power of those strange people, a man en- 
tered the hut. 

It was his old gardener. "Oh, sir! " said the old man, "such 
a night as this I trusted never to live to see! — ye maun come 
to the Place directly! " 

"Is my boy found? — is he alive? — have ye found Harry Ber- 
tram? — Andrew, have ye found Harry Bertram?" 

"No, sir; but" 

"Then he is kidnapped! I am sure of it, Andrew — as sure as 
that I tread upon earth ! She has stolen him— and I will never 
stir from this place till I have tidings of my bairn ! " 

"0, but ye maun come hame, sir! ye maun comehame! we 
have sent for the sheriff, and we'll set a watch here a' night, in 

case the gypsies return; hut you — ye maun come hame, sir, 

for my lady's in the dead-thraw." 

Bertram turned a stupid and unmeaning eye on the messenger 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 313 

who uttered this calamitous news; and, repeating the words 
''in the dead-thraw ! " as if he could not comprehend their mean- 
ing, suffered the old man to drag him towards his horse. During 
the ride home, he only said, " Wife and bairn, baith— mother and 
son, baith— Sair, sair to abide!" 

It is needless to dwell upon the new scene of agony which 
awaited him. The news of Kennedy's fate had been eagerly and 
incautiously communicated at Ellangowan, with the gratuitous 
addition, that, doubtless, "he had draw^n the young Laird 
over the craig with him, though the tide had swept away the 
child's body — he was light, puir thing! and w^ould flee farther 

into the surf." 

******* 

[Calamity befell the Laird. His wife dies from sorrow, his 
fortune is lost, and his property is to be sold.] 

Early next morning, Mannering mounted his horse, and ac- 
companied by his servant, took the road to Ellangowan. He 
had no need to inquire the way. A sale in the country is a place 
of public resort and amusement, and people of various descrip- 
tions streamed to it from all quarters. 

After a pleasant ride of about an hour, the old towers of the 
ruin presented themselves in the landscape. The thoughts, with 
what different feelings he had lost sight of them so many years 
before, thronged upon the mind of the traveler. The landscape 
was the same; but how changed the feelings, hopes, and views 
of the spectator! Then, life and love were new, and all the 
prospect was gilded by their rays. And now, disappointed in 
affection, sated with fame, and what the world calls success, 
his mind goaded by bitter and repentant recollection, his best 
hope was to find a retirement in which he might nurse the melan- 
choly that was to accompany him to his grave. "Yet, why 
should an individual mourn over the instability of his hopes, and 
the vanity of his prospects? The ancient chiefs, who erected 
these enormous and massive towers to be the fortress of their 
race, and the seat of their power,— could they have dreamed the 
day was to come, when the last of their descendants should be 



314 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

expelled, a ruined wanderer, from his possessions? But nature's 
bounties are unaltered. The sun will shine as fair on these ruins, 
whether the property of a stranger, or of a sordid and obscure 
trickster of the abused law, as when the banners of the founder 
first waved upon their battlements." 

These reflections brought Mannering to the door of the house, 
which was that day open to all. He entered among others who 
traversed the apartments — some to select articles for purchase, 
others to gratify their curiosity. There is something melan- 
choly in such a scene, even under the most favorable circum- 
stances. The confused state of the furniture, displaced for the 
convenience of being easily viewed and carried off by the pur- 
chasers, is disagreeable to the eye. Those articles w^iich, prop- 
erly and decently arranged, look creditable and handsome, have 
then a paltry and wretched appearance; and the apartments, 
stripped of all that render them commodious and comfortable, 
have an aspect of ruin and dilapidation. It is disgusting, also, 
to see the scenes of domestic society and seclusion thrown open 
to the gaze of the curious and the vulgar ; to hear their coarse 
speculations and brutal jests upon the fashions and furniture to 
which they are unaccustomed, — a frolicsome humor much cher- 
ished by the whisky which in Scotland is always put in circu- 
lation on such occasions. Ail these are ordinary effects of such 
a scene as Ellangowan now presented; but the moral feeling, 
that, in this case, they indicated the total ruin of an ancient and 
honorable family, gave them treble weight and poignancy. 

It was some time before Colonel Mannering could find anyone 
disposed to answer his reiterated questions concerning Ellan- 
gowan himself. At length, an old maidservant, who held her 
apron to her eyes as she spoke, told him, " the Laird was some- 
thing better, and they hoped he would be able to leave the 
house that day. Miss Lucy expected the chaise every moment, 
and, as the day was fine for the time o' year, they had carried him 
in his easy chair up to the green before the auld castle, to be out 
of the way of this unco spectacle." Hither Colonel Mannering 
went in quest of him, and soon came in sight of the little group, 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 315 

which consisted of four persons. The ascent was steep, so that 
he had time to reconnoiter them as he advanced, and to consider 
in what mode he should make his address. 

Mr. Bertram, paralytic, and almost incapable of moving, oc- 
cupied his easy chair, attired in his nightcap and a loose camlet 
coat, his feet wrapped in blankets. Behind him, with his hands 
crossed on the cane upon which he rested, stood Dominie Samp- 
son, whom Mannering recognized at once. Time had made no 
change upon him, unless that his black coat seemed more brown, 
and his gaunt cheeks more lank, than when Mannering last saw 
him. On one side of the old man was a sylph-like form— a young 
woman of about seventeen, whom the Colonel accounted to be 
his daughter. She was looking, from time to time, anxiously 
towards the avenue, as if expecting a post-chaise; and between 
whiles busied herself in adjusting the blankets, so as to protect 
her father from the cold, and in answering inquiries, which he 
seemed to make with a captious and querulous manner. She did 
not trust herself to look towards the Place, although the hum of 
the assembled crowd must have drawn her attention in that 
direction. The fourth person of the group was a handsome 
and genteel young man, who seemed to share Miss Bertram's 
anxiety, and her solicitude to soothe and accommodate her 
parent. 

This young man was the first who observed Colonel Manner- 
ing, and immediately stepped forward to meet him, as if politely 
to prevent his drawing nearer to the distressed group. Manner- 
ing instantly paused, and explained. "He was," he said, ''a 
stranger, to whom Mr. Bertram had formerly shown kindness 
and hospitality ; he would not have intruded himself upon him 
at a period of distress, did it not seem to be in some degree 
a moment also of desertion; he wished merely to offer such 
services as might be in his power, to Mr. Bertram and the young 
lady." 

He then paused at a little distance from the chair. His old 
acquaintance gazed at him with lackluster eye that intimated 
no tokens of recognition— the Dominie seemed too deeply sunk 



316 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

in distress even to observe his presence. The young man spoke 
aside with Miss Bertram, who advanced timidly, and thanked 
Colonel Mannering for his goodness; "but," she said, the tears 
gushing fast into her eyes, "her father, she feared, w^as not so 
much himself as to be able to remember him." 

She then retreated towards the chair, accompanied by the Col- 
onel. " Father," she said, " this is Mr Mannering, an old friend, 
come to inquire after you." 

" He's very heartily welcome," said the old man, raising himself 
in his chair, and attempting a gesture of courtesy, while a gleam 
of hospitable satisfaction seemed to pass over his faded features. 
" But, Lucy, my dear, let us go down to the house; you should 
not keep the gentleman here in the cold. Dominie, take the key 
of the wine cooler. Mr. a— a— the gentleman will surely take 
something after his ride." 

Mannering was unspeakably affected by the contrast which his 
recollection made between this reception and that with which he 
had been greeted by the same individual when they last met. He 
could not restrain his tears, and his evident emotion at once at- 
tained him the confidence of the friendless young lady. 

" Alas! " she said, "this is distressing even to a stranger; but 
it may be better for my poor father to be in this way, than if he 
knew and could feel all." 

A servant in livery now came up the path, and spoke in an un- 
dertone to the young gentleman:— "Mr. Charles, my lady's 
wanting you yonder sadly, to bid for her for the black ebony 
cabinet ; and Lady Jean Devorgoil is wi' her an' a'— ye maun 
come away directl3^" 

"Tell them you could not find me, Tom ;— or stay,— say I am 
looking at the horses." 

"No, no, no," said Lucy Bertram, earnestly;— "if you would 
not add to the misery of this miserable moment, go to the com- 
pany directly. This gentleman, I am sure, will see us to the 
carriage." 

"Unquestionably, madam," said Mannering, "your young 
friend may rely on my attention." 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 317 

"Farewell, then," said youno- Hazlewood, and whispered a 
word in her ear— then ran down the steep hastily, as if not trust- 
ing his resolution at a slower pace. 

" Where's Charles Hazlewood running? " said the invalid, who 
apparently was accustomed to his presence and attentions; 
<' Where's Charles Hazlewood running?— what takes him away 
now?' 

"He'll return in a little while," said Lucy, gently. 

The sound of voices was now heard from the ruins. (The 
reader may remember there was a communication between the 
castle and the beachj up which the speakers had ascended.) 

"Yes, there's plenty of shells and seaware for manure, as you 
observe — and if one inclined to build a new house, which might 
indeed be necessary, there's a great deal of good hewn stone 
about this old dungeon for the devil here — " 

"Good God !" said Miss Bertram hastily to Sampson, "'tis 
that wretch Glossin's voice!— if my father sees him, it will kill him 
outright! " 

Sampson wheeled perpendicularly round, and moved with long 
strides to confront the attorney, as he issued from beneath the 
portal arch of the ruin. "Avoid ye!" he said— "avoid ye! 
wouldst thou kill and take possession?" 

"Come, come. Master Dominie Sampson," answered Glossin, 
insolently, "if ye cannot preach in the pulpit, we'll have no 
preaching here. We go by the law, my good friend ; we leave 
the gospel to you." 

The very mention of this man's name had been of late a 
subject of the most violent irritation to the unfortunate patient. 
The sound of his voice now produced an instantaneous effect. 
Mr. Bertram started up without assistance, and turned round 
towards him, the ghastliness of his features forming a strange 
contrast with the violence of his exclamations. "Out of my 
sight, ye viper! ye frozen viper, that I warmed till ye stung me ! 
— art thou not afraid that the walls of my father's dwelling 
should fall and crush thee limb and bone? — are ye not afraid 
the very lintels of the door of Ellangowan castle should break 



318 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

open and swallow you up? Were ye not friendless, — houseless, 
— penniless, — when I took ye by the hand — and are ye not expel- 
ling me— me, and that innocent girl— friendless, houseless, and 
penniless, from the house that has sheltered us and ours for a 
thousand years ? " 

Had Glossin been alone, he would probably have slunk off; but 
the consciousness that a stranger was present, besides the per- 
son who came with him (a sort of land-surveyor), determined 
him to resort to impudence. The task, however, was almost too 
hard, even for his effrontery. "Sir— Sir— Mr. Bertram— Sir, you 
should not blame me, but your own imprudence, sir " — 

The indignation of Mannering was mounting very high. "Sir," 
he said to Glossin, "without entering into the merits of this 
controversy, I must inform you, that you have chosen a very 
improper place, time and presence for it. And you will oblige 
me by withdrawing without more words." 

Glossin being a tall, strong, muscular man, was not unwilling 
rather to turn upon a stranger whom he hoped to bully, than 
maintain his wretched cause against his injured patron. "I do 
not know who you are, sir," he said, "and I shall permit no man 
to use such d— d freedom with me." 

Mannering was naturally hottempered— his eyesflashed adark 
light — he compressed his nether lip so closely that the blood 
sprung, and approaching Glossin — "Look you, sir," he said, 
"that you do not know me, is of little consequence. / know 
you ; and, if you do not instantly descend that bank without 
uttering a single syllable, by the Heaven that is above us, you 
shall make but one step from the top to the bottom ! " 

The commanding tone of rightful anger silenced at once the 
ferocity of the bully. He hesitated, turned on his heel, and, 
muttering something between his teeth about unwillingness to 
alarm the lady, relieved them of his hateful company. 

Mrs. Mac-Candlish's postillion, wdio had come up in time to 
hear what passed, said aloud, "If he had stuck by the way, I 
would have lent him a heezie, the dirty scoundrel, as willingly as 
ever I pitched a boddle." 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 319 

He then stepped forward to announce that his horses were in 
readiness for the invalid and his daughter. 

But they were no longer necessary. The debilitated frame of 
Mr. Bertram was exhausted by this last effort of indignant 
anger, and when he sunk again upon his chair, he expired almost 
without a struggle or groan. So little alteration did the ex- 
tinction of the vital spark make upon his external appearance, 
that the screams of his daughter, when she saw his eye fix and 

felt his pulse stop, first announced his death to the spectators. 
* * * * * * * 

[The sale is adjourned and Mr. Mannering makes a short tour 
during a fortnight.] But before he departed, he solicited an in- 
terview with the Dominie. The poor man appeared, on being 
informed a gentleman wanted to speak to him, with some ex- 
pression of surprise in his gaunt features, to which recent sorrow 
had given an expression yet more grisly. He made two or three 
profound reverences to Mannering, and then, standing erect, 
patiently waited an explanation of his commands. 

"You are probably at a loss to guess, Mr. Sampson," said 
Mannering, " what a stranger may have to say to you?" 

" Unless it were to request that I would undertake to train up 
some youth in polite letters, and humane learning. But I can- 
not — I cannot — I have yet a task to perform." ^ 

''No, Mr. Sampson, my wishes are not so ambitious. I have 
no son, and my only daughter, I presume, you would not con- 
sider as a fit pupil." 

" Of a surety, no," replied the simple-minded Sampson. "Na- 
theless, it was I who did educate Miss Lucy in all useful learning, 
— albeit it was the housekeeper who did teach her those unprofit- 
able exercises of hemming and shaping." 

" Well, sir," replied Mannering, " it is of Miss. Lucy I meant to 
speak — you have, I presume, no recollection of me?" 

Sampson, always sufficiently absent in mind, neither remem- 
bered the astrologer of past years, nor even the stranger who 
had taken his patron's part against Glossin, so much had his 
friend's sudden death embroiled his ideas. 



320 I'HE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

'-■ Well, that does not signify," pursued the Colonel, " I am an 
old acquaintance of the late Mr. Bertram, able and willing to as- 
sist his daughter in her present circumstances. Besides, I have 
thoughts of making this purchase, and I should wish things kept 
in order about the place : will you have the goodness to apply 
this small sum in the usual family expenses? " He put into the 
Dominie's hand a purse containing some gold. 

" Pro-di-gi-ous ! " exclaimed Dominie Sampson. "But if your 
honor would tarry " 

"Impossible, sir — impossible," said Mannering, making his 
escape from him. 

" Pro-di-gi-ous! " again exclaimed Sampson, following to the 
head of the stairs, still holding out the purse. "But as touch- 
ing this coined money " 

Mannering escaped down stairs as fast as possible. 

"Pro-di-gi-ous!" exclaimed Dominie Sampson, yet the third 
time, now standing at the front door. "But as touching this 
specie" 

But Mannering was now on horseback, and out of hearing. 
The Dominie, who had never, either in his own right, or as trustee 
for another, been possessed of a quarter part of this sum, though 
it was not above twenty guineas, "took counsel," as he ex- 
pressed himself, "how he should demean himself with respect 
unto the fine gold " thus left in his charge. Fortunately he 
found a disinterested adviser in Mac-Morlan, who pointed out 
the most proper means of disposing of it for contributing to 
Miss Bertram's convenience, being no doubt the purpose to 
which it was destined by the bestower. 

******* 

[Through the delay of an express, the property is sold for a 
trifle, and the Place of Ellangowan passes into other hands.] 

The Galwegian John o' the Scales was a more cleverfellow than 
his prototype. He contrived to make himself heir of Linne with- 
out the disagreeable ceremony of "telling down the good red 
gold." Miss Bertram no sooner heard this painful, and of late 
unexpected intelligence, than she proceeded in the preparations 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 321 

she had already made for leaving the mansion-house immedi- 
ately. Mr. Mac-Morlan assisted her in these arrangements, and 
pressed upon her so kindly the hospitality and protection of his 
roof, until she should receive an answer from her cousin, or be 
enabled to adopt some settled plan of life, that she felt there 
would be unkindness in refusing an invitation urged with such 
earnestness. Mrs. Mac-Morlan was a ladylike person, and well 
qualified by birth and manners to receive the visit, and to make 
her house agreeable to Miss Bertram. A home, therefore, and an 
hospitable reception, were secured to her, and she went on, with 
better heart, to pay the wages and receive the adieus of the few 
domestics of her father's family. 

Where there are estimable qualities on either side, this task is 
always affecting — the present circumstances rendered it doubly 
so. All received their due, and even a trifle more, and with 
thanks and good wishes, to which some added tears, took fare- 
well of their young mistress. There remained in the parlor only 
Mr. Mac-Morlan, who came to attend his guest to his house, 
Dominie Sampson and Miss Bertram. "And now," said the poor 
girl, ^' I must bid farewell to one of my oldest and kindest friends 
— God bless you, Mr. Sampson! and requite to you all the kind- 
ness of your instructions to your poor pupil, and your friendship 
to him that is gone! I hope I shall often hear from you." She 
slid into his hand a paper containing some pieces of gold, and 
rose, as if to leave the room. 

Dominie Sampson also rose; but it was to stand aghast with 
utter astonishment. The idea of parting from Miss Lucy, go 
where she might, had never once occurred to the simplicity of his 
understanding. He laid the money on the table. "It is cer- 
tainly inadequate," said Mac-Morlan, mistaking his meaning, 
"but the circumstances" 

Mr. Sampson waved his hand impatiently— "It is not the 
lucre — it is not the lucre — but that I, that have ate of her father's 
loaf, and drank of his cup, for twenty years, and more — to think 
I am going to leave her — and to leave her in distress and dolor! 
No, Miss Lucy, you need never think it ! You would not consent 

2 T. L.— 21 



322 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

to put forth your father's poor dog, and would you use luewaur 
than a messan? No, Miss Lucy Bertram — while I live, I will 
not separate from you. I'll be no burden — I have thought how 
to prevent that. But, as Ruth said unto Naomi, ' Entreat me 
not to leave thee, nor to depart from thee; for whither thou 
goest I will go, and where thou dwellest I will dwell ; thy people 
shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God. Where thou 
diest will I die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to 
me, and more also, if aught but death do part thee and me.'" 

During this speech, the longest ever Dominie Sampson was 
known to utter, the affectionate creature's eyes streamed with 
tears, and neither Lucy nor Mac-Morlan could refrain from sym- 
pathizing with this unexpected burst of feeling and attachment. 
''Mr. Sampson," said Mac-Morlan, after having had recourse to 
his snuff box and handkerchief alternately, "my house is large 
enough, and if you will accept of a bed there, while Miss Bertram 
honors us with her residence, I shall think myself very happy, 
and my roof much favored, by receiving a man of your worth and 
fidelity." And then, with a delicacy which was meant to remove 
any objection on Miss Bertram's part to bringing with her this 
unexpected satellite, he added, "My business requires my fre- 
quently having occasion for a better accountant than any of my 
present clerks, and I should be glad to have recourse to your 
assistance in that way now and then." 

" Of a surety, of a surety," said Sampson eagerly; "I under- 
stand bookkeeping by double entry and the Italian method." 

Our postillion had thrust himself into the room to announce 
his chaise and horses; he tarried, unobserved, during this ex- 
traordinary scene, and assured Mrs. Mac-Candhsh it was the most 
moving thing he ever saw; "the death of the gray mare, puir 
hizzie, was naethingtill't." This trifling circumstance afterwards 
had consequences of greater moment to the Dominie. 

The visitors were hospitably welcomed by Mrs. Mac-Morlan, to 
whom, as well as to others, her husband intimated that he had 
engaged Dominie Sampson's assistance to disentangle some per- 
plexed accounts; during which occupation he would, for conven- 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 323 

ience sake, reside with the family-. Mr. Mac-Morlaii's knowledge 
of the world induced him to put this color upon the matter, 
aware, that however honorable the fidelity of the Dominie's at- 
tachment mi<^ht be, both to his own heart and to the family of 
Ellangowan, his exterior ill-qualified him to be a ''squire of 
dames," and rendered him, upon the whole, rather a ridiculous 
appendage to a beautiful young woman of seventeen. 

Dominie Sampson achieved with great zeal such tasks as Mr. 
Mac-Morlan chose to intrust him witli; but it was speedily ob- 
served that at a certain hour after breakfast he regularly disap- 
peared, and returned again about dinner time. The evening he 
occupied in the labor of the office. On Saturday, he appeared 
before Mr. Mac-Morlan with a look of great triumph, and laid on 
the table two pieces of gold. 

" What is this for. Dominie? " said Mac-Morlan. 

"First to indemnify you of your charges in my behalf, worthy 
sir — and the balance for the use of Miss Lucy Bertram." 

"But, Mr. Sampson, your labor in the office much more than 
recompenses me — I am your debtor, my good friend." 

"Then be it all," said the Dominie, waving his hand, " for Miss 
Lucy Bertram's behoof." 

"Well, but, Dominie, this money" 

"It is honestly come by, Mr. Mac-Morlan; it is the bountiful 
reward of a young gentleman, to whom I am teaching the 
tongues; reading with him three hours daily." 

A few more questions extracted from the Dominie, that this 
liberal pupil was young Hazlewood, and that he met his pre- 
ceptor daily at the house of Mrs. Mac-Candlish, whose proclama- 
tion of Sampson's disinterested attachment to the young lady 
had procured him this indefatigable and bounteous scholar. 

Mac-Morlan was much struck with what he heard. Dominie 
Sampson was doubtless a very good scholar, and an excellent 
man, and the classics were unquestionably very well worth read- 
ing ; yet that a young man of twenty should ride seven miles 
and back again each day in the week, to hold this sort of tete-a- 
tete of three hours, was a zeal for literature to which he was not 



324 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

prepared to give entire credit. Little art was necessary to sift 
the Dominie, for the honest man's head never admitted any but 
the most direct and simple ideas. "Does Miss Bertram know 
how your time is engaged, my good friend ? " 

<' Surely nob, as yet — Mr. Charles recommended it should be 
concealed from her, lest she should scruple to accept of the small 
assistance arising from it; but," he added, "it would not be pos- 
sible to conceal it long, since Mr. Charles proposed taking his 
lessons occasionally in this house." 

" 0, he does ! " said Mac-Morlan , "Yes, yes, I can understand 
that better. And pray, Mr. Sampson, are these three hours en- 
tirely spent in construing and translating ? " 

"Doubtless, no — we have also colloquial intercourse to sweeten 
study — Deque semper arcum tendit Apollo.' ' ^*^ 

The querist proceeded to elicit from this Galloway Phoebus 
what their discourse chiefly turned upon. 

"Upon our past meetings at Ellangowan — and truly, I think 
very often we discourse concerning Miss Lucy — for Mr. Charles 
Hazlewood, in that particular, resembleth me, Mr. Mac-Morlan. 
When I begin to speak of her I never know when to stop — and, 
as I say (jocularly), she cheats us out of half our lessons." 

" ho ! " thought Mac-Morlan ; " sits the wind in that quarter? 
I've heard something like this before." 

He then began to consider what conduct was safest for his 
protegee, and even for himself, for the senior Mr. Hazlewood was 
powerful, wealthy, ambitious, and vindictive, andlooked for both 
fortune and title in any connection which his son might form. At 
length, having the highest opinion of his guest's good sense and 
penetration, he determined to take an opportunity, when they 
should happen to be alone, to communicate the matter to her as 
a simple piece of intelligence. He did so in as natural a manner 
as he could : " I wish you joy of your friend Mr. Sampson's good 
fortune, Miss Bertram; he has got a pupil who pays him two 
guineas for twelve lessons of Greek and Latin." 

"Indeed ! I am equally happy and surprised. Who can be so 
liberal ?— is Colonel Mannering returned ? " 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 325 

"No, no, not Colonel Mannering ; but what do you think of 
your acquaintance, Mr. Charles Hazlewood ? He talks of taking 
his lessons here; I wish we may have accommodation for him." 

Lucy blushed deeply. "For Heaven's sake, no, Mr. Mac-Mor- 
lan— do not let that be ;— Charles Hazlewood has had enough of 
mischief about that already." 

"About the classics, my dear young lady ! " willfully seeming 
to misunderstand her; "most young gentlemen haA^e so at one 
period or another, sure enough ; but his present studies are vol- 
untary." 

Miss Bertram let the conversation drop, and her host made no 
effort to renew it, as she seemed to pause upon the intelligence, in 
order to form some internal resolution. 

The next day Miss Bertram took an opportunity of convers- 
ing with Mr. Sampson. Expressing in the kindest manner her 
grateful thanks for his disinterested attachment, and her joy 
that he had got such a provision, she hinted to him that his 
present mode of superintending Charles Hazlewood's studies must 
be so inconvenient to his pupil, that, while that engagement 
lasted, he had better consent to a temporary separation, and 
reside either with his scholar, or as near him as might be. 
Sampson refused, as indeed she had expected, to listen for a 
moment to this proposition— he would not quit her to be made 
preceptor to the Prince of Wales. " But I see," he added, "you 
are too proud to share my pittance; and peradventure, I grow 
wearisome unto you." 

"No, indeed— you were my father's ancient, almost his only 
friend; — I am not proud— God knows, I have no reason to be so. 
You shall do what you judge best in other matters; but oblige 
me by telling Mr. Charles Hazlewood, that you had some con- 
versation with me concerning his studies, and that I was of 
opinion that his carrying them on in this house was altogether 
impracticable, and not to be thought of." 

Dominie Sampson left her presence altogether crest-fallen, and, 
as he shut the door, could not help muttering the " variuni et 
mutabile'^ ^'' of Virgil. Next day he appeared with a very rueful 



326 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

visage, and tendered Miss Bertram a letter. '' Mr. Hazlewood," 
he said, " was to discontinue his lessons, though he had gener- 
ously made up the pecuniary loss. But how will he make up the 
loss to himself of the knowledge he might have acquired under 
my instruction? Even in that one article of writing, he was an 
hour before he could write that brief note, and destroyed many 
scrolls, four quills, and some good white paper. I would have 
taught him in three weeks a firm, current, clear, and legible hand 
—he should have been a calligrapher; but God's will be done." 

The letter contained but a. few lines, deeply regretting and 
murmuring against Miss Bertram's cruelty, who not only refused 
to see him, but to permit him in themost indirect manner to hear 
of her health and contribute to her service. But it concluded 
W'ith assurances that her severity was vain, and that nothing 
could shake the attachment of Charles Hazlewood. 

Under the active patronage of Mrs. Mac-Candlish, Sampson 
picked up some other scholars— very different indeed from Charles 
Hazlewood in rank— and whose lesscms were proportionally un- 
productive. Still, however, he gained something, and it was the 
glory of his heart to carry it to Mr. Mac-Morlan weekly, a slight 
peculium only subtracted, to supply his snuffbox and tobacco- 
pouch. 

***** * * 

The fate of Dominie Sampson would have been deplorable 
had it depended upon anyone except Mannering, who was an ad- 
mirer of originality; for a separation from Lucy Bertram would 
have certainly broken his heart. Mac-Morlan had given a full 
account of his proceeding towards the daughter of his patron. 
The answer was a request from Mannering to know^, whether 
the Dominie still possessed that admirable virtue of taciturnity 
by which he was so notably distinguished at Ellangowan. 
Mac-Morlan replied in the affirmative. '' Let Mr. Sampson know," 
said theColonel's next letter, "that I shall want his assistance to 
catalogue and put in order the library of my uncle, the bishop, 
which I have ordered to be sent down by sea. I shall also want 
him to copy and arrange some papers. Fix his salary at what 



SIR WALTER SCOTT, 327 

you think befitting:. Let the poor man be properly dressed, and 
accompany his young lady to Woodbourne." 

Honest Mac-Morlan received this miindate with great joy, but 
pondered much upon executing that part of it which related to 
newly attiring the worthy Dominie. Helookedathimwith a scru- 
tinizing eye, and it was but too plain that his present garments 
were daily waxing more deplorable. To give him money, and bid 
him go and furnish himself, would be only giving him the means of 
making himself ridiculous; for when such a rare event arrived to 
Mr. Sampson as the purchase of new garments, the additions 
which he made to his wardrobe by the guidance of his own taste, 
usually brought all the boys of the village after him for many 
days. On the other hand, to bring a tailor to measure him, and 
send home his clothes as for a schoolboy, would probably give of- 
fense. At length Mac-Morlan resolved to consult Miss Bertram 
and request her interference. She assured him, that though she 
could not pretend to superintend a gentleman's wardrobe, 
nothing was more easy than to arrange the Dominie's. 

" At EUangowan," she said, " whenever my poor father thought 
any part of the Dominie's dress wanted renewal, a servant was 
directed to enter his room by night, for he sleeps as fast as a dor- 
mouse, carry off the old vestment, and leave the new one; — nor 
could anyone observe that the Dominie exhibited the least con- 
sciousness of the change put upon him on such occasions." 

Mac-Morlan, in conformity with Miss Bertram's advice, pro- 
cured a skillful artist, who, on looking at the Dominie attentively, 
undertook to make for him two suits of clothes, one black, and 
one raven-grey, and even engaged that they should fit him — 
as well, at least (so the tailor qualified his enterprise), as 
a man of such an out-of-the-way build could be fitted by merely 
human needles and shears. When this fashioner had accom- 
plished his task, and the dresses were brought home, Mac- 
Morlan, judiciously resolving to accomplish his purpose by de- 
grees, withdrew that evening an important part of his dress, and 
substituted the new article of raiment in its stead. Perceiving 
that this passed totally without notice, he next ventured on the 



328 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

waistcoat, and lastly on the coat. When fully metamorphosed, 
and arrayed for the first time in his life in a decent dress, they did 
observe, that the Dominie seemed to have some indistinct and 
embarrassing consciousness that a change had taken place on his 
outward man. Whenever they observed this dubious expression 
gather upon his countenance, accompanied with a glance, that 
fixed now upon the sleeve of his coat, now upon the knees of his 
breeches, where he probably missed some antique patching and 
darning, which, being executed with blue thread upon a black 
ground, had somewhat the effect of embroidery, they always 
took care to turn his attention into some other channel, until 
his garments, '< by the aid of use, cleaved to their mould." The 
only remark he was ever known to make on the subject was, 
that the "air of a town like Kippletringan seemed favorable 
unto wearing apparel, for he thought his coat looked almost as 
new as the first day he put it on, which was when he went to 
stand trial for his license as a preacher.'' 

When the Dominie first heard of the liberal proposal of Colonel 
Mannering, he turned a jealous and doubtful glance towards 
Miss Bertram, as if he suspected that the project involved their 
separation; but when Mr. Mac-Morlan hastened to explain that 
she would be a guest at Woodbourne for some time, he rubbed 
his huge hands together, and burst into a portentous sort of 
chuckle, like that of the Afrite in the tale of the Caliph Vathek/^ 
After this unusual explosion of satisfaction, he remained quite 
passive in all the rest of the transaction. 

****** * 

Mannering now turned his eye upon the Dominie, who 
had made bows since his entrance into the room, sprawling out 
his leg, and bending his back like an automaton, which con- 
tinues to repeat the same movement, until the motion is stopped 
by the artist. "My good friend, Mr. Sampson,"— said Manner- 
ing, introducing him to his daughter, and darting at the same 
time a reproving glance at the damsel, notwithstanding he had 
himself some disposition to join her too obvious inclination to 
risibility— " This gentleman, Julia, is to put my books in order 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 329 

when they arrive, and I expect to derive great advantage from 
his extensive learning." 

"I am sure we are obliged to the gentleman, papa — and, to 
borrow a ministerial mode of giving thanks, I shall never forget 
the extraordinary countenance he has been pleased to show us. 
But, Miss Bertram," continued she hastily, for her father's 
brows began to darken, " we have traveled agood way,— will you 
permit me to retire before dinner ? " 

This intimation dispersed all the company save the Dominie, 
who, having no idea of dressing but when he was to rise, or of 
undressing but when he meant to go to bed, remained by himself, 
chewing the cud of a mathematical demonstration, until the com- 
pany again assembled in the drawing room, and from thence ad- 
journed to the dining parlor. 

When the day was concluded, Mannering took an opportunity 
to hold a minute's conversation with his daughter in private. 

<' How do you like your guests, Julia? " 

"0, Miss Bertram of all things. But this is a most original 
parson — why, dear sir, no human being will be able to look at 
him without laughing." 

'' While he is under my roof, Julia, every one must learn to do 
so." 

<<Lord, papa, the very footmen could not keep their gravity!" 

"Then let them strip off my livery," said the Colonel, ''and 
laugh at their leisure. Mr. Sampson is a man whom I esteem for 
his simplicity and benevolence of character." 

"0, I am convinced of his generosity too," said this lively 
lady; "he cannot lift a spoonful of soup to his mouth, without 
bestowing a share on everything round." 

"Julia, you are incorrigible; — but remember, I expect your 
mirth on this subject to be under such restraint, that it shall 
neither offend this worthy man's feelings nor those of Miss Ber- 
tram, who may be more apt to feel upon his account than he on 
his own. And so, good-night, my dear; and recollect that, 
though Mr. Sampson has certainly not sacrificed to the graces, 
there are many things in this world more truly deserving of 



330 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ridicule than either awkwardness of manners or simplicity of 
character." 

In a day or two Mr. and Mrs. Mac-Morlan left Woodbourne, aft- 
er taking an affectionate farewell of their late guest. The house- 
hold were now settled in their new quarters. The young ladies 
followed their studies and amusements together. Colonel Man- 
nering was agreeably surprised to find that Miss Bertram was 
well skilled in French and Italian — thanks to the assiduity of 
Dominie Sampson, whose labor had silently made him acquainted 
with most modern as well as ancient languages. Of music she 
knew little or nothing, but her new friend undertook to give her 
lessons; in exchange for which, she was to learn from Lucy the 
habit of walking, and the art of ridiug, and the courage neces- 
sary to defy the season. Mannering was careful to substitute 
for their amusement in the evening such books as might convey 
some solid instruction with entertainment, and, as he read aloud 
with great skill and taste, the winter nights passed pleasantly 
away. 

Society was quickly formed where there were so many induce- 
ments. Most of the families of the neighborhood visited Colonel 
Mannering, and he was soon able to select from among them 
such as best suited his taste and habits. Charles Hazlewood held 
a distinguished place in his favor, and was a frequent visitor, not 
without the consent and approbation of his parents; for there was 
no knowing, they thought, what assiduous attention might pro- 
duce, and the beautiful Miss Mannering, of high family, with an 
Indian fortune, was a prize worth looking after. Dazzled with 
such a prospect, they never considered the risk which had once 
been some object of their apprehension, that his boyish and in- 
considerate fancy might form an attachment to the penniless 
Lucy Bertram, who had nothing on earth to recommend her, 
but a pretty face, good birth, and a most amiable disposition. 
Mannering was more prudent. He considered himself acting as 
Miss Bertram's guardian, and while he did not think it incum- 
bent upon him altogether to check her intercourse with a young 
gentleman for whom, excepting in wealth, she was a match in 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 331 

every respect, he laid it under such insensible restraints as might 
prevent any engagement or eclaircissement taking place until the 
young man should have seen a little more of life and of the 
world, and have attained that age when he might be considered 
as entitled to judge for himself in the matter in which his happi- 
ness was chiefly interested. 

While these matters engaged the attention of the other mem- 
bers of the Woodbourne family, Dominie Sampson was occupied, 
body and soul, in the arrangement of the late bishop's library, 
which had been sent from Liverpool by sea, and conveyed by 
thirty or forty carts from the seaport at which it was landed. 
Sampson's joy at beholding the ponderous contents of these 
chests arranged upon the floor of the large apartment, from 
whence he was to transfer them to the shelves, baffles all descrip- 
tion. He grinned like an ogre, swung his arms like the sails of a 
windmill, shouted '' Prodigious" till the roof rang to his rap- 
tures. " He had never," he said, '' seen so many books together, 
except in the college library; " and now his dignity and delight 
in being superintendent of the collection, raised him, in his own 
opinion, almost to the rank of the academical librarian, whom 
he had always regarded as the greatest and happiest man on 
earth. Neither were his transports diminished upon a hasty ex- 
amination of the contents of these volumes. Some, indeed, of 
belles-lettres, poems, plays, or memoirs, he tossed indignantly 
aside, with the implied censure of "psha," or "frivolous," but 
the greater and bulkier part of the collection bore a very differ- 
ent character. The deceased prelate, a divine of the old and 
deeply-learned cast, had loaded his shelves with volumes which 
displayed the antique and venerable attributes so happily de- 
scribed by a modern poet: 

That weight of wood, with loathern coat o'erlaid, 

Those ample clasps of solid metal made, 

The close-pressed leaves unoped for many an age, 

The dull red edo'ing of the well-filled i)age, 

On the broad back the stubborn ridges rolled, 

Where yet the title stands in tarnished gold. 



332 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Books of theology and controversial divinity, commentaries 
and polyglots, sets of the fathers, and sermons, which might each 
furnish forth ten brief discourses of modern date, books of 
science, ancient and modern, classical authors in their best and 
rarest forms; such formed the late bishop's venerable library, 
and over such the eye of Dominie Sampson gloated with rapture. 
He entered them in the catalogue in his best running hand, form, 
ing each letter with the accuracy of a lover writing a valentine, 
and placed each individually on the destined shelf with all the 
reverence which I have seen a lady pay to a jar of old china. 
With all this zeal his labors advanced slowly. He often opened 
a volume when halfway up the library steps, fell upon some in- 
teresting passage, and, without shifting his inconvenient pos- 
ture, continued immersed in the fascinating perusal until the 
servant pulled him by the skirts to assure him that dinner 
waited. He then repaired to the parlor, bolted his food down 
his capacious throat in squares of three inches, answered aye or 
no at random to whatever question was asked at him, and 
again hurried back to the library as soon as his napkin was re- 
moved, and sometimes with it hanging round his neck like a 
pinafore- 
How happily the days 
Of Thalaba went by ! 
♦ ***** * 

Upon the evening of the day when Bertram's examination had 
taken place. Colonel Mannering arrived at Woodbourne from 
Edinburgh. He found his family in their usual state, which 
probably, so far as Julia was concerned, would not have been the 
case had she learned the news of Bertram's arrest. But as, dur- 
ing the Colonel's absence, the two young ladies lived much retired, 
this circumstance fortunately had not reached Woodbourne. 
A letter had already made Miss Bertram acquainted with the 
downfall of the expectations which had been formed upon the 
bequest of her kinswoman. Whatever hopes that news might 
have dispelled, the disappointment did not prevent her from 
joining her friend in affording a cheerful reception to the Colonel, 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 333 

to whom she thus endeavored to express the deep sense she en- 
tertained of his paternal kindness. She touched on her regret 
that at such a season of the year he should have made, upon her 
account, a journey so fruitless. 

''That it was fruitless to you, my dear," said the Colonel, " I 
do most deeply lament; but for my own share, I have made 
some valuable acquaintances, and have spent the time I have 
been absent in Edinburgh with peculiar satisfaction; so that, on 
that score, there is nothing to be regretted. Even our friend the 
Dominie is returned thrice the man he was, from having sharp- 
ened his wits in controversy with the geniuses of the northern 
metropolis." 

" Of a surety," said the Dominie, with great complacency, "I 
did wrestle, and was not overcome, though my adversary was 
cunning in his art." 

"I presume," said MissMannering, " thecontest was somewhat 
fatiguing, Mr. Sampson?" 

" Very much, young lady— howbeit, I girded up my loins and 
strove against him." 

" I can bear witness," said the Colonel, " I never saw an affair 
better contested. The enemy was like the Mahratta cavalry ; he 
assailed on all sides, and presented no fair mark for artillery ; 
but Mr. Sampson stood to his guns, notwithstanding, and fired 
away, now upon the enemy, and now upon the dust which he had 
raised. But we must not fight our battles over again to-night 
—to-morrow we shall have the whole at breakfast." 

The next morning at breakfast, however, the Dominie did not 
make his appearance. He had walked out, a servant said, early 
in the morning ; it was so common for him to forget his meals, 
that his absence never deranged the family. The housekeeper, a 
decent old-fashioned Presbyterian matron, having, as such, the 
highest respect for Sampson's theological acquisitions, had it in 
charge on these occasions to take care that he was no sufferer by 
his absence of mind, and, therefore, usually waylaid him on his 
return, to remind him of his sublunary wants, and to minister to 
their relief. It seldom, however, happened that he was absent 



334 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE, 

from two meals together, as was the case in the present instance. 
We must explain the cause of this unusual occurrence. 

The conversation which Mr. Pleydell had held with Mr. Man- 
neringon the subject of the loss of Harry Bertram, had awakened 
all the painful sensations which that event had inflicted upon 
Sampson. The affectionate heart of the poor Dominie had al- 
ways reproached him, that his neghgence in leaving the child in 
the care of Frank Kennedy had been the proximate cause of the 
murder of the one, the loss of the other, the death of Mrs. Ber- 
tram, and the ruin of the family of his patron. It was a subject 
which he never conversed upon, — if, indeed, his mode of speech 
could be called conversation at any time — but it was often pres- 
ent to his imagination. The sort of hope so strongly affirmed 
and asserted in Mrs. Bertram's last settlement, had excited a 
corresponding feeling in the Dominie's bosom, which was exasper- 
ated into a sort of sickening anxiety, by the discredit with which 
Pleydell had treated it. "Assuredly," thought Sampson to him- 
self, " he is a man of erudition, and well skilled in the weighty 
matters of the law ; but he is also a man of humorous levity and 
inconsistency of speech ; and wherefore should he pronounce ex 
cathedra, as it were, on the hope expressed by Vvorthy Madam 
Margaret Bertram, of Singleside?" 

All this, I say, the Dominie thought to himself; for had he ut- 
tered half the sentences, his jaws would have ached for a month 
under the unusual fatigue of such a continued exertion. The 
result of these cogitations was a resolution to go and visit the 
scene of the tragedy at Warroch Point, where he had not been 
for many years— not, indeed, since the fatal accident had hap- 
pened. The walk was a long one, for the Point of Warroch lay 
on the farther side of the Ellangowan property, which was inter- 
posed between it and Woodbourne. Besides, the Dominie went 
astray more than once, and met with brooks swollen into torrents 
by the melting of the snow, where he, honest man, had only the 
summer recollection of little trickling rills. 

At length, however, he reached the woods which he had made 
the object of his excursion, and traversed them with care, mud- 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 335 

dling his disturbed brains with vague efforts to recall every cir- 
cumstance of the catastrophe. It will readily be supposed that 
the influence of local situation and association was inadequate to 
produce conclusions different from those which he had formed 
under the immediate pressure of the occurrences themselves. 
"With many a w^eary sigh, therefore, and many a groan," the 
poor Dominie returned from his hopeless pilgrimage, and weariedly 
plodded his way towards Woodbourne, debating at times, in his 
altered mind, a question which was forced upon him by the crav- 
ings of an appetite rather of the keenest, namely, whether he had 
breakfasted that morning or no? It was in this twilight 
humor, now thinking of the loss of the child, then involuntarily 
compelled to meditate upon the somewhat incongruous subject of 
hung-beef, rolls, and butter, that his route, which was different 
from that which he had taken in the morning, conducted him 
past the small ruined tower, or rather vestige of a tower, called 
by the country people the Kaim of Derncleugh. 

The reader may recollect the description of this ruin in the 
twenty-seventh chapter of this narrative, as the vault in which 
young Bertram, under the auspices of Meg Merrilies, witnessed 
the death of Hatteraick's lieutenant. The tradition of the coun- 
try added ghostly terrors to the natural awe inspired by the 
situation of this place— which terrors the gypsies, who so long 
inhabited the vicinity, had probably invented, or at least propo- 
gated,for their own advantage. It was said that during the 
times of the Galwegian independence, oneHanlon Mac-Dingawaie, 
brother to the reigning chief, Knarth Mac-Dingawaie, mur- 
dered his brother and sovereign, in order to usurp the princi- 
pality from his infant nephew, and that, being pursued for 
vengeance by the faithful allies and retainers of the house, who 
espoused the cause of the lawful heir, he was compelled to re- 
treat with a few followers whom he had involved in his crime, to 
this impregnable tower called the Kaim of Derncleugh, where he 
defended himself until nearly reduced by famine, when, setting 
fire to the place, he and the small remaining garrison desperate- 
ly perished by their own swords, rather than fall into the hands 



336 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

of their exasperated enemies. This tragedy, which, considering 
the wild times wherein it was placed, might have some founda- 
tion in truth, was larded with many legends of superstition 
and diablerie, so that most of the peasants of the neighbor- 
hood, if benighted, would rather have chosen to make a consid- 
erable circuit, than pass these haunted walls. The lights, often 
seen around the tower when used as the rendezvous of the law- 
less characters by whom it was occasionally frequented, were 
accounted for, under authority of these tales of witchery, in a 
manner at once convenient for the private parties concerned, 
and satisfactory to the public. 

Now it must be confessed that our friend Sampson, although 
a profound scholar and mathematician, had not traveled so far 
in philosophy as to doubt the reality of witchcraft or appa- 
ritions. Born, indeed, at a time when a doubt in the existence 
of witches was interpreted as equivalent to a justification of 
their infernal practices, a belief of such legends had been impressed 
upon the Dominie as an article indivisible from his religious 
faith; and perhaps it would have been equally difficult to have 
induced him to doubt the one as the other. With these feelings, 
and in a thick misty day, which was already drawing to its close, 
Dominie Sampson did not pass the Kaim of Derncleugh without 
some feelings of tacit horror. 

What, then, was his astonishment, when, on passing the door 
—the door which was supposed to have been placed there by one 
of the latter Lairds of EUangowan, to prevent presumptuous 
strangers from incurring the dangers of the haunted vault— that 
door, supposed to be always locked, and the key of which was 
popularly said to be deposited with the presbytery — that door, 
that very door, opened suddenly, and the figure of Meg.Merrilies, 
well known, though not seen for many a revolving year, was 
placed at once before the eyes of the startled Dominie! She stood 
immediately before him in the footpath, confronting him so ab- 
solutely, that he could not avoid her except by fairly turning 
back, which his manhood prevented him from thinking of. 

''I kenn'd ye wad be here," she said, with her harsh and 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 337 

hollow voice. "I ken wha ye seek; but ye maun do my bid- 
ding." 

"Get thee behind me!" said the alarmed Dominie. ''Avoid 
ye! Conjuro te, scelestissima—nequissima—spurcissima—iniquis- 
sima—atque miserrima — conjuro te I ! .^" ^^ 

Meg stood her ground against this tremendous volley of su- 
perlatives, which Sampson hawked up from the pit of his stom- 
ach, and hurled at her in thunder. *'Is the carl daft," she said, 
'' wi' his glamour? " 

''Conjuro,'^ continued the Dominie, '^abjuro, contestor, atque 
viriliter, impero tibi ! " 

''What, in the name of Sathan, are ye feared for, wi' your 
French gibberish, that would make a dog sick? Listen, ye 
stickit stibbler, to what I tell ye, or ye shall rue it while there 's 
a limb o' ye hings to anither! Tell Colonel Mannering that I 
ken he's seeking me. He kens, and I ken, that the blood will be 
wiped out, and the lost will be found. 

And Bertram's right and Bertram's might 
Shall meet on Ellangowan height. 

Hae, there's a letter to him; I was gaun to send it in anither 
way. I canna write mysell ; but I hae them that will baith write 
and read, and ride and rin for me. Tell him the time's coming 
now, and the weird's dreed, and the wheel's turning. Bid him 
look at the stars as he has looked at them before. Will ye mind 
a' this?" 

"Assuredly," said the Dominie, " I am dubious — for, woman, I 
am perturbed at thy words, and my flesh quakes to hear thee." 
"They'll do you nae ill though, and may be muckle gude." 
" Avoid ye! I desire no good that comes by unlawful means." 
"Fule-body that thou art!" said Meg, stepping up to him 
with a frown of indignation that made her dark eyes flash like 
lamps from under her bent brows — "fule-body! if I meant ye 
wrang, couldna I clod ye ower that craig, and wad man ken how 
ye cam by your end mair than Frank Kennedy ? Hear ye that, 
ye worricow? " 

2 T. L.— 22 



388 THE TEACHER IN LlTERATUJRJ^. 

"In the name of all that is good," said the Dominie, recoiling, 
and pointing his long pewter-headed walking-cane like a javelin 
at the supposed sorceress, — "in the name of all that is good, 
bide off hands! I will not be handled— w^oman, stand off, upon 
thine own proper peril ! — desist, I say — I am strong — lo, I will 
resist!" Here his speech was cut short; for Meg, armed with 
supernatural strength (as the Dominie asserted), broke in upon 
his guard, put by a thrust which he made at her with his cane, 
and lifted him into the vault, ''as easily," said he, "as I could 
sway a Kitchen's Atlas." 

"Sit down there," she said, pushing the half-throttled preacher 
with some violence against a broken chair — " sit down there, and 
gather your wind and your senses, ye black barrow-tram o' the 
kirk that ye are! Are ye fou or fasting? " 

" Fasting— from all but sin," answered the dominie, who, re- 
covering his voice, and finding his exorcisms only served to ex- 
asperate the intractable sorceress, thought it best to affect com- 
plaisance and submission, inwardly conning over, however, the 
wholesome conjurations which he durst no longer utter aloud. 
But as the Dominie's brain was by no means equal to carry on 
two trains of ideas at the same time, a word or two of his mental 
exercise sometimes escaped, and mingled with his uttered speech 
in a manner ludicrous enough, especially as the poor man shrunk 
himself together after every escape of the kind, from terror of the 
effect it might produce upon the irritable feelings of the witch. 

Meg, in the meanwhile, went to a great black cauldron, that 
was boiling on a fire on the floor, and, lifting the lid, an odor 
was diffused through the vault, which, if the vapors of a witch's 
cauldron could in aught be trusted, promised better things than 
the hellbroth which such vessels are usually supposed to con- 
tain. It was in fact the savor of a goodly stew, composed of 
fowls, hares, partridges, and moorgame, boiled in a large mess 
with potatoes, onions, and leeks, and, from the size of the 
cauldron, appeared to be prepared for half a dozen of people at 
least. 

" So ye hae eat naething a' day ? " said Meg, heaving a large 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 339 

portion of this mess into a brown dish, and strewing it savorily 
with salt and pepper. 

"Nothing," answered the Dominie— ^^ scelestissima !— that is 
gudewife." 

" Hae then," said she, placing the dish before him, '^there's 
what will warm your heart." 

''Ido not hunger— ma/e^ca— this is to say— Mrs. Merrilies!" 
for he said unto himself, "the savor is sweet, but it hath been 
cooked by a Canidia or an Ericthoe."^*^ 

"If ye dinna eat instantly, and put some saul in ye, by the 
bread and the salt, I'll put it down your throat wi' the cutty 
spoon, scaulding as it is, and whether ye will or no. Gape, sinner, 
and swallow! " 

Sampson, afraid of eye of newt, and toe of frog, tigers' chaw- 
drons and so forth, had determined not to venture; but the smell 
of the stew was fast melting his obstinacy, which flowed from his 
chops as it were in streams of water, and the witch's threats 
decided him to feed. Hunger and fear are excellent casuists. 

"Saul," said Hunger, "feasted with the witch of Endor." 
"And," quoth Fear, "the salt which she sprinkled upon the food 
showeth plainly it is not a necromantic banquet, in which that 
seasoning never occurs." "And besides," says Hunger, after 
the first spoonful, "it is savory and refreshing viands." 

"So ye like the meat?" said the hostess. 

"Yea," answered the Dominie, "and I give thee thanks — 
sceleratJssima,'^ — which means — Mrs. Margaret." 

" Aweel, eat your fill; but an ye kenn'd how it was gotten, ye 
maybe wadna like it saeweel." Sampson's spoon dropped, in 
the act of conveying its load to his mouth. "There's been mony 
a moonlight watch to bring a' that trade thegither," continued 
Meg,— "the folk that are to eat that dinner thought little o' 
your game laws." 

"Is that all?" thought Sampson, resuming his spoon, and 
shoveling away manfully ; "I will not lack my food upon that 
argument." 

"Now, ye maun tak a dram." 



340 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

" I will," quoth Sampson — " conjuro ^e — that is, I thank you 
heartily," for he thought to himself, in for a penny, in for a 
pound; and he fairly drank the witch's health in a cupful of 
brandy. When he had put this copestone upon Meg's good 
cheer, he felt, as he said, " mightily elevated, and afraid of no evil 
which could befall unto him." 

" Will ye remember my errand now?" said Meg Merrilies <'I 
ken by the cast o' your ee that ye're anither man than when you 
cam in." 

"I will, Mrs. Margaret," repeated Sampson stoutly; "I will 
deliver unto him the sealed yepistle, and will add what you please 
to send by word of mouth." 

" Then I'll make it short," says Meg. '* Tell him to look at 
the stars without fail this night, and to do what I desire him in 
that letter, as he would wish 

That Bertram's right and Bertram's might 
Should meet on Ellangowan height. 

I have seen him twice when he saw na me, I ken when he was in 
this country first, and I ken what's brought him back again. 
Up, an' to the gate! ye're ower lang here— follow me." 

Sampson followed the sibyl accordingly, who guided him about 
a quarter of a mile through the woods, by a shorter cut than he 
could have found for himself; they then entered upon the com- 
mon, Meg still marching before him at a great pace, until she 
gained the top of a small hillock which overhung the road. 

"Here," she said, "stand still here. Look how the setting 
sun breaks through yon cloud that's been darkening the lift a' 
day. See where the first stream o' light fa's— it 's upon Dona- 
gild's round tower— the auldest tower in the Castle o' Ellangowan 
— that's no for naething! See as it's glooming to seaward 
abune yon sloop in the bay^that 's no for naething neither. 
Here I stood on this very spot," said she, drawing herself up so 
as not to lose one hair-breath of her uncommon height, and 
stretching out her long sinewy arm and clenched hand — "here I 
stood, when I tauld the last Laird o' Ellangowan what was com- 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 341 

ing on his house— and did that fa' to the ground ? Na— it hit 
even ower sair! And here, where I brake the wand of peace ower 
him— here I stand again— to bid God bless and prosper the just 
heir of Ellangowan that will sune be brought to his ain; and the 
best laird he shall be that Ellangowan has seen for three hundred 
years. I'll no live to see it, maybe; but there will mony ablythe 
ee see it, though mine be closed. And now, Abel Sampson, as 
ever ye lo'ed the house of Ellangowan, away wi' my message to 
the English Colonel, as if life and death were upon your haste ! " 

So saying, she turned suddenly from the amazed Dominie, and 
regained with swift and long strides the shelter of the wood 
from which she had issued, at the point where it most en- 
croached upon the common. Sampson gazed after her for a 
moment in utter astonishment, and then obeyed her directions, 
hurrying to Woodbourne at a pace very unusual for him, 
exclaiming three times, "Prodigious! prodigious! pro-di-gi- 
ous." 

As Mr. Sampson crossed the hall with a bewildered look, 
Mrs. Allen, the good housekeeper, who, wdth the reverent atten- 
tion which is usually rendered to the clergy in Scotland, was on 
the watch for his return, sallied forth to meet him— "What's 
this o't now, Mr. Sampson; this is waur than ever! — ye'll really 
do yourself some injury wi' these lang fasts— naething 's sae 
hurtful to the stamach, Mr. Sampson; if ye would but put some 
peppermint draps in your pocket, or let Barnes cut ye a sand- 
wich." 

''Avoid thee!" quoth the Dominie, his mind running still 
upon his interview with Meg Merrilies, and making for the dining 
parlor. 

" Na, ye needna gang in there — the cloth's been removed an 
hour syne, and the Colonel 's at his wine; but just step into my 
room — I have a nice steak that the cook will do in a moment." 

^' Exorciso te.'"^^ said Sampson, — "that is, I have dined." 

" Dined ! it 's impossible— wha can 3"e hae dined wi', you that 
gangs out nae gate? " 

<' With Beelzebub, I believe," said the minister, 



342 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

''Na, then he's bewitched for certain," said the houselieeper, 
letting go her hold ; " he 's bewitched, or he 's daft, and ony way 
the Colonel maun just guide him his ain gate. Wae 's me! Hech, 
sirs! It's a sair thing to see learning bring folk to this!" 
And with this compassionate ejaculation she retreated into her 
own premises. 

The object of her commiseration had by this time entered the 
dining parlor, where his appearance gave great surprise. He was 
mud up to the shoulders, and the natural paleness of his hue was 
twice as cadaverous as usual , through terror, fatigue, and per- 
turbation of mind. '' What on earth is the meaning of this, Mr. 
Sampson? " said Mannering, who observed Miss Bertram looking 
much alarmed for her simple, but attached friend. 

" E'xorci.S'o," said the Dominie. 

''How, sir?" replied the astonished Colonel. 

"I crave pardon, honorable sir! but my wits" — 

" It may be a message from Heaven," said the Dominie; "but 
it came by Beelzebub's postmistress. It was that witch, Meg 
Merrilies, who should have been burned with a tar barrel twenty 
years since, for a harlot, thief, witch and gypsy." 

"Are you sure it was she?" said the Colonel, with great in- 
terest. 

"Sure, honored sir? Of a truth she is one not to be for- 
gotten — the like o' Meg Merrilies is not to be seen in any land." 
* * * * * * * 

It was now Julia's turn to look a Httle out of countenance at 
the chance hit of her learned admirer, but that instant the Colo- 
nel entered the room. " I can hear nothing of them yet," he said ; 
"still, however, we will not separate. Where is Dominie Samp- 
son?" 

" Here, honored sir." 

"What is that book you hold in your hand, Mr. Sampson? " 

"It 'seven the learned De Lyra, sir— I would crave his honor 
Mr. Pleydell's judgment, always with his best leisure, to expound 
a disputed passage." 

"I am not in the vein, Mr. Sampson," answered Pleydell; 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 343 

<< here's metal more attractive — I do not despair to engage these 
two young ladies in a glee or a catch, wherein I, even I myself, 
will adventure myself for the bass part. Hang De Lyra, man ; 
keep him for a fitter season." 

The disappointed Dominie shut his ponderous tome, much 
marveling in his mind how a person possessed of the lawyer's 
erudition could give his mind to these frivolous toys. But the 
counselor, indifferent to the high character for learning which he 
was trifling away, filled himself a large glass of Burgundy, and 
after preluding a little with a voice somewhat the worse for the 
wear, gave the ladies a courageous invitation to join in "We be 
three poor Mariners," and accomplished his own part therein 
with great eclat. 

" Are you not withering your roses with sitting up so late, my 
young ladies ? " said the colonel. 

"Not a bit, sir," answered Julia; ''your friend, Mr. Pleydell, 

threatens to become a pupil of Mr. Sampson's to-morrow, so we 

must make the most of our conquest to-night." 

***** * * 

In a short time a gentle tap announced the Colonel, with 
whom Bertram held a long and satisfactory conversation. Each, 
however, concealed from the other one circumstance. Manner- 
ing could not bring himself to acknowledge the astrological pre- 
diction; and Bertram was, from motives which may be easily 
conceived, silent respecting his love for Julia. In other respects, 
their intercourse was frank, and grateful to both, and had lat- 
terly, upon the Colonel's part, even an approach to cordiality. 
Bertram carefully measured his own conduct by that of his host, 
and seemed rather to receive his offered kindness with gratitude 
and pleasure, than to press for it with solicitation. 

Miss Bertram was in the breakfast parlor when Sampson 
shuffled in, his face all radiant with smiles; a circumstance so 
uncommon, that Lucy's first idea was, that somebody had been 
bantering him with an imposition which had thrown him into 
this eestacy. Having sate for some time, rolling his eyes and 
gaping with his mouth like the great wooden head at Merlin's 



344 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

exhibition, he at length began— '< And what do you think of 
him, Miss Lucy?" 

"Think of whom, Mr. Sampson?" asked the young lady. 

"Of Har — no — of him that you know about?" again demanded 
the Dominie. 

"That I know about?" replied Lucy, totally at a loss to 
comprehend his meaning. 

" Yes— the stranger, you know, that came last evening in the 
post vehicle — he who shot young Hazlewood — ha! ha! ho!" 
burst forth the Dominie, with a laugh that sounded like neigh- 
ing. 

"Indeed, Mr. Sampson," said his pupil, "you have chosen a 
strange subject for mirth; I think nothing about the man — only I 
hope the outrage was accidental, and that we need not fear a 
repetition of it." 

"Accidental!— ho! ho! ha!" again whinnied Sampson. 

" Really, Mr. Sampson," said Lucy, somewhat piqued, "you 
are unusually gay this morning." 

" Yes, of a surety I am ! ha ! ha ! ho ! fa-ce-ti-ous— ho ! ho ! ha ! " 

"So unusually facetious, my dear sir," pursued the young 
lady, "that I would wish rather to know the meaning of your 
mirth, than to be amused with its effects only." 

"You shall know it, Miss Lucy," replied poor Abel. " Do you 
remember your brother ?" 

"Good God! how can you ask me?— no one knows better 
than you he was lost the very day I was born." 

" Very true, very true," answered the Dominie, saddening at 
the recollection ; "I was strangely oblivious— ay, ay— too true. 
But you remember your worthy father? " 

"How should you doubt it, Mr. Sampson? It is not so many 
weeks since" 

"True, true— ay, too true," replied the Dominie, his Hou- 
yhnhnm laugh sinking into a hysterical giggle. "I will be face- 
tious no more under these remembrances. But look at that young 
man! " 

Bertram at this instant entered the room. " Yes, look at him 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 345 

well— he is j^our father's living image; and as God has deprived 
you of your dear parents— ray children, love one another! " 

" It is indeed my father's face and form," said Lucy, turning 
very pale. Bertram ran to support her— the Dominie to fetch 
water to throw upon her face— (which in his haste he took from 
the boiling tea urn)— when fortunately her color returning rapid- 
ly, saved her from the application of this ill-judged remedy. " I 
conjure you to tell me, Mr. Sampson," she said, in an interrupted 
yet solemn voice, "is this my brother?" 

" It is! it is. Miss Lucy !— it is little Harry Bertram, as sure as 
God's sun is in that heaven ! " 

"And this is my sister?" said Bertram, giving way to all that 
family affection, which had so long slumbered in his bosom 
for want of an object to expand itself upon. 

<'It is! it is!— it is Miss Lucy Bertram! " ejaculated Samp- 
son, " whom by my poor aid you will find perfect in the tongues 
of France and Italy, and even of Spain— in reading and writ- 
ing her vernacular tongue, and in arithmetic and bookkeeping 
by double and single entry. I say nothing of her talents of 
shaping, and hemming, and governing a household, which, to 
give everyone their due, she acquired not from me, but from 
the housekeeper; nor do I take merit for her performance 
upon stringed instruments, whereunto the instructions of an 
honorable young lady of virtue and modesty, and very facetious 
withal — Miss Julia Mannering— hath not meanly contributed — 
Suum cuique tribuito.^'' ^^ 

"You, then," said Bertram to his sister, "are all that remains 
to me ! Last night, but more fully this morning, Colonel Man- 
nering gave me an account of our family misfortunes, though 
without saying I should find my sister here." 

"That," said Lucy, "he left to this gentleman to tell you, 
— one of the kindest and most faithful of friends, who soothed 
my father's long sickness, witnessed his dying moments, and 
amid the heaviest clouds of fortune would not desert his 
orphan." 

" God bless him for it ! " said Bertram, shaking the Dominie's 



346 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

hand ; "he deserves the love with which I have always regarded 
even that dim and imperfect shadow of his memory which my 
childhood retained." 

" And God bless you both, my dear children! " said Sampson ; 
" if it had not been for your sake, I would have been contented 
(had Heaven's pleasure so been) to lay my head upon the turf 
beside my patron." 

"But I trust," said Bertram— "I am encouraged to hope, we 
shall all see better days. All our wrongs shall be redressed, since 
Heaven has sent me means and friends to assert my right." 

"Friends indeed!" echoed the Dominie, "and sent, as you 
truly say, by Him to whom I early taught you to look up as the 
source of all that is good. There is the great Colonel Mannering 
from the Eastern Indies, a man of war from his birth upwards, 
but who is not the less a man of great erudition, considering his 
imperfect opportunities; and there is, moreover, the great ad- 
vocate, Mr. Pleydell, who is also a man of great erudition, but 
who descendeth to trifles unbeseeming thereof; and there is Mr. 
Andrew Dinmont, whom I do not understand to have possession 
of much erudition, but who, like the patriarchs of old, is cunning 
in that which belongeth to flocks and herds. Lastly, there is 
even I myself, whose opportunities of collecting erudition, as 
they have been greater than those of the aforesaid valuable per- 
sons, have not, if it becomes me so to speak, been pretermitted 
by me, in so far as my poor faculties have enabled me to profit 
by them. Of a surety, little Harry, we must speedily resume our 
studies. I will begin from the foundation— yes, 1 will reform 
your education upward from the true knowledge of English gram- 
mar, even to that of the Hebrew or Chaldaic tongue." 

The reader may observe, that upon this occasion Sampson 
was infinitely more profuse of words that he had hitherto ex- 
hibited himself. The reason was, that in recovering his pupil, his 
mind went instantly back to their original connection, and he 
had, in his confusion of ideas, the strongest desire in the world 
to resume spelling lessons, and half-text with young Bertram. 
This was the more ridiculous, as towards Lucy he assumed no 



SIE WALTER SCOTT. 347 

such powers of tuition. But she had grown up under his eye, 
and had been gradually emancipated from his government by in- 
crease in years and knowledge, and a latent sense of his own in- 
ferior tact in manners, whereas his first ideas went to take up 
Harry pretty nearly where he had left him. From the same feel- 
ings of reviTing authority, he indulged himself in what was to him 
aprofusion of language ; and as people seldom speak morethan 
usual without exposing themselves, he gave those whom head- 
dressed plainly to understand, that while he deferred implicitly to 
the opinions and commands, if they chose to impose them, of 
{^Imost everyone whom he met with, it was under an internal 
conviction, that in the article of e-ru-di-ti-on, as he usually pro- 
nounced the word, he was infinitely superior to them all put to- 
gether. At present, however, this intimation fell upon heedless 
ears, for the brother and sister were too deeply engaged in ask- 
ing and receiving intelligence concerning their former fortunes, to 

attend much to the worthy Dominie. 

******* 

As Glossin died without heirs, and without payment of the 
price, the estate of Ellangowan was again thrown upon the 
hands of Mr. Godfrey Bertram's creditors, the right of most of 
whom was, however, defeasible, in case Henry Bertram should 
establish his character of heir of entail. This young gentleman 
put his affairs into the hands of Mr. Pleydell and Mr. Mac- 
Morlan, with one single proviso, that though he himself should 
be obliged again to go to India, every debt, justly and honor- 
ably due by his father, should be made good to the claimant. 

The hoards of Miss Margaret Bertram, and the liberal as- 
sistance of the Colonel, easily enabled the heir to make provi- 
sion for payment of the just creditors of his father;— while the in- 
genuity and research of his law friends detected, especially in the 
accounts of Glossin, so many overcharges as greatly diminished 
the total amount. In these circumstances, the creditors did 
not hesitate to recognize Bertram's right, and to surrender to 
him the house and property of his ancestors. All the party re- 
paired from Woodbourne to take possession, amid the shouts of 



348 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

the tenantry and the neighborhood ; and so eager was Colonel 
Mannering to superintend certain improvements which he had 
recommended to Bertram, that he removed with his family from 
Woodbourne to Ellangowan, although at present containing 
much less and much inferior accommodation. 

The poor Dominie's brain w^as almost turned with joy on re- 
turning to his old habitation. He posted upstairs, taking 
three steps at once, to a little shabby attic, his cell and dormi- 
tory in former days, and which the possession of his much supe- 
rior apartment at Woodbourne had never banished from his 
memory. Here one sad thought suddenly struck the honest 
man — the books! —no three rooms in Ellangowan were capable 
to contain them. While this qualifying reflection was passing 
through his mind, he was suddenly summoned by Mannering to 
assist in calculating some proportions relating to a large and 
splendid house, which was to be built on the site of the New 
Place of Ellangowan, in a style corresponding to the magnifi- 
cence of the ruins in its vicinity. Among the various rooms in 
the plan, the Dominie observed that one of the largest was en- 
titled The Library; and close beside was a snug well-pro- 
portioned chamber, entitled, Mr. Sampson's Apartment. ' ' Pro- 
digious, prodigious, prodigious!" shouted the enraptured 
Dominie. 

characterization. 

*' Scott's novels," says Palgrave, "have naturally overshadowed his 
fame as a poet ; they are more singularly and strikingly original, more 
unique in literature; and the form of the prose story, admitting readily 
of narrative details, and allowing the author to explain remote alhisions 
as he advances, was more capable of giving free play for Scott's tastes 
and materials than poetry, however irregular in its structure. Hence, he 
did not make himself quite so much at home in his poems. Perhaps they 
depended a little too much on archaeology; the ancient manners, dresses, 
and customs painted occasionally compete in interest with the delinea- 
tion of human character; those marvelous scenes from common life 
which are true in all ages, or those sketches of contemporary manners, 
which Scott has employed with such skill and power to counterpoise the 
antiquarian element in the novels, could hardly find a place in verse. 
He has indeed given us something of this kind in the beautiful iutroduc- 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 340 

tion of the "Lay" and "Marmion," and, less successfully, though even 
here with much grace, in Triermain ; but they are not wrought up into a 
whole; they do not form an integral portion of the poem. On the other 
hand, the metrical descriptions of scenery, if not more picturesque and 
vivid than those of the romances, tell more forcibly; they also relieve 
the narrative by allowing the writer's own thoughts and interests to 
touch our hearts— an expedient used by Scott with singular skill. Scott's 
completeness of style, which is more injurious to poetry than to prose, 
his 'careless grace and reckless rhyme,' have been alleged by a great 
writer of our time as one reason why he is now less popular as a poet 
than he was in his own day. 

******* 

Scott never lays bare the workings of his mind, like Goethe or Shel- 
ley ; he does not draw out the moral of the landscape, like Wordsworth; 
rather, after the fashion of Homer and the writers of the ages before 
criticism, he presents a scene and leaves it to work its own effect on the 
reader. His most perfect and lovely poems, the short songs which occur 
scattered through the metrical or the prose narrativ(^s, are excellent 
instances. He is the most unself-conscious of our modern poets — per- 
haps, of all our poets; the difference in this respect between him and his 
friends, Byron and Wordsworth, is like a difference of centuries. If they 
give us the inner spirit of modern life, or of nature, enter into our per- 
plexities, or probe our deeper passions, Scott has a dramatic faculty not 
less delightful and precious. He hence attained eminent success in one 
of the rarest and most difficult aims of poetry— sustained vigor, clear- 
ness, and interest in narration. If we reckon up the poets of the world, 
we may be surprised to find how very few (dramatists not included) had 
accomplished this, and may be hence led to estimate Scott's rank in his 
art more justly. One looks through the English poetry of the first half 
of the century in vain, unless it be here and there indicated in Keats, for 
such a power of vividly throwing himself into others as that of Scott. 
His contemporaries, Crabbe excepted, paint emotions. He paints men 
when strongly moved. They draw the moral ; but he can invent the 
fable. Goethe was accustomed to speak of Scott as the 'greatest writer 
of his time,' as unique and unequaled. When asked to put his views on 
paper, he replied with the remark which he also made upon Shakespeare, 
Scott's art was so high, that it was hard to attempt giving a formal 
opinion on it. But a few words may be added on the relation borne 
by the novels to the author's character. It has been observed that 
one of the curious contrasts which make up that complex creature, 
Walter Scott, is the strong attraction which drew him, as a Lowlander, 
the born natural antagonist of the Gael, to the Highland people. All 
that we admire in the Gael had been to the Scot i^roper the source of 



aSO THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

contempt and of repugnance. Such a feeling is one of the worst in- 
stincts of human nature; it is an unmistakable part of the brute with- 
in us ; more than any other cause, the hatred of race to race has 
hampered the progress of man. There is also no feeling which is more 
persistent and obstinate. But it has been entirely conquered in the case 
of the Saxon and the Gael. Now this vast and salutary change in na- 
tional opinion is directly due to Scott. This may be regarded, on the 
whole, as his greatest achievement. He united the sympathies of two 
hostile races by the sheer force of genius. He healed the bitterness of 
centuries. vScott did much in idealizing, as poetry should, the common 
life of his contemporaries. He equally did much in rendering the past 
history, and the history of other countries in which Scotchmen jjlayed a 
conspicuous part, real to us. 

******* 

For creating types of actual human life, Scott is, perhaps, surpassed by 
Crabbe; he does not analyze character, or delineate it in its depths, 
but exhibits the man rather by speech and action ; he is 'extensive' rath- 
er than 'intensive; ' has more of Chaucer in him than of Goethe ; yet, if 
we look at the variety and richness of his gallery, at his command over 
pathos and terror, the laughter and the tears, at the many large inter- 
ests besides those of romance which he realizes tons, at the way in which 
he paints the whole life of men, not their humors or passions alone, at 
his unfailing wholesomeness and freshness, like the sea and air and 
groat elementary forces of nature, it may be pronounced a just estimate, 
which — without trying to measure the space which separates these stars 
— places Scott second in our creative or imaginative literature to Shakes- 
peare. 'All is great in the Waverley novels,' said Goethe, in 1831, 'ma- 
terial, effect, characters, execution.' Astronomers tell us that there are 
no fixed points in the heavens, and that earth and sun momentarily shift 
their bearings. As analogous displacement may be preparing for the 
loftiest glories of the human intellect, Homer may become dim, and 
Shakespeare too distant. Perhaps the same fate is destined for Scott. 
But it would be idle to speculate on this, or try to predict the time when 
men will no longer be impressed by the vividness of Waverley or the 
pathos of Lammermoor. 



THOMAS HOOD. 

1798-1845. 

This English poet and humorist was born in London, 1798. His 
father was a man of intelligence, and author of two novels. Hood was 
very fortunate in the selection of his first teacher, who appreciated his 
talent and " made him feel it impossible not to take an interest in learn- 
ing, while he seemed so interested in teaching." His first literary work 
was revising an edition of "Paul and Virginia." He quite early entered 
the counting house of a friend of the family, but the uncongenial pro- 
fession affected his health and he went to reside with a relation at Dun- 
dee. His life here was rather disagreeable. It turned him in upon him- 
self, which suited the originality of his character, and he became a great 
and indiscriminate reader. Lord Houghton says: "His modest judg- 
ment of his own ability deterred him from literature as a profession," 
so he returned to London and learned the art of engraving. In 1821 
he became the editor of the "London Magazine" which position brought 
him into intimate relation with the eminent literary men of this time. 
His "Odes and Addresses," published in conjunction with his brother- 
in-law, elicited from Sir Walter Scott strong expressions of gratification. 
Not long after, he published several volumes, " Whims and Oddities," 
"National Tales," etc., in which his humorous faculty so characteristic 
of him, predominated. It was not long after this that his health broke 
down, and from a sick bed he wrote "The Song of the Shirt," "The 
Bridge of Sighs," and "The Song of the Laborer," with which very few 
readers of English literature are unacquainted. He received from the 
government a pension, which continued to his wife and family after his 
death, May 3, 1845. He was buried in Kensall Green, where, by public 
subscription, a monument was raised to his memory. 

Lord Houghton says: "Happy the humorist, whose works and life 
are an illustration of the great moral truth that the sense of humor is 
the just balance of all the faculties of, man, the best security against 
the pride of knowledge and the conceits of the imagination, the strong- 
est inducement to submit with a wise and pious patience to the vicissi- 
tudes of human existence. This was the lesson that Thomas Hood left 
behind him, and which the people of this country will not easily forget. 

(351) 



352 THE TEACHER IN LITERATVUE. 

The Irish Schoolmaster. 
I. 

Alack! 'tis melancholy theme to think 
How Learning doth in rugged states abide, 
And, like her bashful owl, obscurely blink, 
In pensive glooms and corners, scarcely spied ; 
Not, as in Founders' Halls and domes of pride, 
Served with grave homage, like a tragic queen, 
But with one lonely priest compelled to hide. 
In midst of foggy moors and mosses green, 
In that clay cabin hight, the College of Kilreen ! 

II. 

This college looketh South and West alsoe. 
Because it hath a cast in windows twain ; 
Crazy and cracked they be, and wind doth blow 
Thorough transparent holes in every pane. 
Which Dan, with many paines, makes whole again 
With nether garments, which his thrift doth teach 
To stand for glass, like pronouns, and when rain 
Stormeth, he puts, " once more unto the breach," 
Outside and in, though broke, yet so he mendeth each. 

m. 

And in the midst a little door there is, 
Whereon a board that doth congratulate 
With painted letters, red as blood I wis, 
Thus written, " Children taken in to Bate; " 
And oft, indeed, the inward of that gate. 
Most ventriloque, doth utter tender squeak. 
And moans of infants that bemoan their fate 
In midst of sounds of Latin, French and Greek, 
Which, all i'the Irish tongue, he teacheth them to speak. 



THOMAS HOOD. 353 

IV. 

For some are meant to right illegal wrongs, 
And some for Doctors of Divinitie, 
Whom he doth teach to murder the dead tongues, 
And soe win academical degree ; 
But some are bred for service of the sea, 
Howbeit, their store of learning is but small, 
For mickle waste he counteth it would be 
To stock a head with bookish wares at all, 
Only to be knocked off by ruthless cannon ball. 



V. 



Six babes he sways,— some little and some big, 
Divided into classes six ; — alsoe, 
He keeps a parlor boarder of a pig, 
That in the College fareth to and fro. 
And picketh up the urchins' crumbs below — 
And eke the learned rudiments they scan, 
And thus his A, B, C, doth wisely know- 
Hereafter to be shown in caravan, 
And raise the wonderment of many a learned man. 



VI. 



Alsoe, he schools some tame familiar fowls. 
Whereof, above his head, some two or three 
Sit darkly squatting, like Minerva's owls. 
But on the branches of no living tree. 
And overlook the learned family; 
While, sometimes, Partlet, from her gloomy perch. 
Drops feather on the nose of Dominie, 
Meanwhile, with serious eye, he makes research 
In leaves of that sour tree of knowledge— now a birch. 

2 T. L.— 23 



354 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

VII. 

No chair he hath, the awful Pedagogue, 
Such as would magisterial hams imbed, 
But sitteth lowly on a beechen log. 
Secure in high authority and dread : 
Large, as a dome for learning, seems his head, 
And like Apollo's, all beset with rays, — 
Because his locks are so unkempt and red. 
And stand abroad in many several ways : — 
No laurel crown he wears, howbeit his cap is baize. 



VIII, 



And, underneath, a pair of shaggy brows 
O'erhang as many eyes of gizzard hue. 
That inward giblet of a fowl, which shows 
A mongrel tint, that is ne brown ne blue; 
His nose— it is a coral to the view ; 
Well nourish'd with Pierian Potheen,— 
For much he loves his native mountain dew: 
But to depict the dye would lack, I ween, 
A bottle-red, in terms, as well as bottle-green. 



IX. 



As for his coat, 'tis such a jerkin short 
As Spenser had , ere he composed his Tales ; 
But underneath he hath no vest, nor aught, 
So that the wind his airy breast assails; 
Below, he wears the nether garb of males, 
Of crimson plush, but non-plushed at the knee: 
Thence further down thenativered prevails. 
Of his own naked fleecy hosierie : — 
Two sandals, without soles, complete his cap-a-pie. 



THOMAS HOOD. 355 

X. 

Nathless, for dignity, he now doth lap 
His function in a magisterial gown, 
That shows more countries in it than a map,— 
Blue tinct, and red, and green, and russet brown, 
Besides some blots, standing for country-town ; 
And eke some rents, for streams and rivers wide ; 
But, sometimes, bashful when he looks adown, 
He turns the garment of the other side, 
Hopeful that so the holes may never be espied ! 



XI. 



And soe he sits, amidst the little pack. 
That look for shady or for sunny noon, 
Within his visage, like an almanack, — 
His quiet smile foretelling gracious boon : 
But when his mouth droops down, like rainy moon. 
With horrid chill each little heart un warms, 
Knowing that infant showers will follow soon, 
And with forebodings of near wrath and storms 
They sit, like timid hares, all trembhng on their forms. 



XII. 



Ah ! luckless wight, who cannot then repeat 
"Corduroy Colloquy," — or " Ki, Kse, Kod," — 
Full soon his tears shall make his turfy seat 
More sodden, though already made of sod, 
For Dan shall whip him with the word of God,- 
Severe by rule, and not by nature mild. 
He never spoils the child and spares the rod, 
But spoils the rod and never spares the child, 
And soe with holy rule deems he is reconciled. 



356 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

XIII. 

But surely the just sky will never wink . 
At men who take delight in childish throe, 
And stripe the nether-urchin like a pink 
Or tender hyacinth, inscribed with woe; 
Such bloody Pedagogues, when they shall know, 
By useless birches, that forlorn recess. 
Which is no holiday, in Pit below, 
Will hell not seem design'd for their distress, — 
A melancholy place, that is all bottomlesse? 



XIV. 



Yet would the Muse not chide the wholesome use 
Of needful discipline, in due degree. 
Devoid of sway, what wrongs will time produce, 
Whene'er the twig untrain'd grows up a tree. 
This shall a Carder, that a Whiteboy be, • 
Ferocious leaders of atrocious bands. 
And Learning's help be used to infamie, 
By lawless clerks, that, with their bloody hands, 
In murder'd English write Rock's murderous commands. 



XV. 



But ah ! what shrilly cry doth now alarm 
The sooty fowls that doz'd upon the beam. 
All sudden fluttering from the brandish' d arm 
And cackling chorus with the human scream; 
Meanwhile the scourge plies that unkindly seam 
In Phelim's brogues, which bares his naked skin. 
Like traitor gap in warlike fort, I deem, 
That falsely lets the fierce besieger in, 
Nor seeks the Pedagogue by other course to win. 



THOMAS HOOD. 357 

XVI. 

No parent dear he hath to heed his cries;— 
Alas ! his parent dear is far aloof, 
And deep in Seven-Dial cellar lies, 
Killed by kind cudgel-play, or gin of proof, 
Or climbeth, catwise, on some London roof. 
Singing, perchance, a lay of Erin's Isle, 
Or, whilst he labors, weaves a fancy-woof, 
Dreaming he sees his home,— his Phelim smile; 
Ah, me ! that luckless imp, who weepeth all the while ! 

xvn. 

Ah ! who can paint that hard and heavy time, 
When first the scholar lists in Learning's train. 
And mounts her rugged steep enforced to climb , 
Like sooty imp, by sharp posterior pain. 
From bloody twig, and eke that Indian cane, 
Wherein, alas! no sugared juices dwell? 
For this, the while one stripling's sluices drain, 
Another weepeth over chilblains fell. 
Always upon the heel, yet never to be well! 

xvm. 

Anon a third, for his delicious root, 
Late ravished from his tooth by elder chit, 
So soon is human violence afoot. 
So hardly is the harmless biter bit ! 
Meanwhile, the tyrant, with untimely wit 
And mouthing face, derides the small one's moan. 
Who, all lamenting for his loss, doth sit. 
Alack,— mischance comes seldom-times alone. 
But aye the worried dog must rue more curs than one. 



358 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

XIX. 

For lo ! the Pedagogue, with sudden drub, 
Smites his scald head, that is already sore, — 
Superfluous wound,— such is Misfortune's rub ! 
Who straight makes answer with redoubled roar, 
And sheds salt tears twice faster than before. 
That still with backward fist he strives to dry ; 
Washing with brackish moisture, o'er and o'er, 
His muddy cheek, that grows more foul thereby, 
Till all his rainy face looks grim as rainy sky. 



XX. 



So Dan, by dint of noise, obtains a peace. 
And with his natural untender knack. 
By new distress, bids former grievance cease. 
Like tears dried up with rugged huckaback. 
That sets the mournful visage all a wrack ; 
Yet soon the child countenance will shine 
Even as thorough storms the soonest slack, 
For grief and beef in adverse ways incline, 
This keeps, and that decays, when duly soak'd in brine. 



XXI. 



Now all is hush'd, and, with a look profound. 
The Dominie lays ope the learned page; 
(So be it called) although he doth expound 
Without a book, both Greek and Latin sage; 
Now telleth he of Rome's rude infant age. 
How Romulus was bred in savage wood, 
"By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage. 
And laid foundation-stone of w^alls of mud, 
But watered it, alas I with warm fraternal blood. 



THOMAS HOOD 359 

XXII. 

Anon, he turns to that Homeric war, 
How Troy was sieged Hke Londonderry town ; 
And stout Achilles, at his jaunting-car, 
Dragged mighty Hector with a bloody crown : 
And eke the bard, that sung of their renown. 
In garb of Greece most beggar-like and torn. 
He paints, with colly, wand'ring up and down 
Because, at once, in seven cities born ; — 
And so, of parish rights, was, all his days, forlorn. 



XXIII. 



Anon, through old Mythology he goes. 
Of gods defunct, and all their pedigrees, 
But shuns their scandalous amours, and shows 
How Plato wise, and clear-eyed Socrates, 
Confess'd not to those heathen hes and shes ; 
But thro' the clouds of the Olympic cope 
Beheld St. Peter with his holy keys. 
And own'd their love was naught, and bow'd to Pope, 
Whilst all their purblind race in Pagan mist did grope. 

XXIV. 

From such quaint themes he turns, at last, aside, 
To new philosophies, that still are green, 
And shows what railroads have been tracked to guide 
The wheels of great political machine ; 
If English corn should grow abroad, I ween. 
And gold be made of gold, or paper sheet; 
How many pigs be born to each spalpeen ; 
And, ah! how man shall thrive beyond his meat, 
With twenty souls alive to one square sod of peat ! 



360 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

XXV. 

Here he makes end ; and all the fry of youth, 
That stood around with serious look intense, 
Close up again their gaping eyes and mouth, 
Which they had opened to his eloquence, 
As if their hearing were a three-fold sense. 
But now the current of his words is done. 
And whether any fruits shall spring from thence 
In future time, with any mother's son ! 
It is a thing, God wot ! that can be told by none. 

XXYI. 

Now by the creeping shadows of the noon, 
The hour is come to lay aside their lore; 
The cheerful pedagogue perceives it soon. 
And cries " Begone! " unto the imps,— and four 
Snatch their two hats and struggle for the door, 
Like ardent spirits vented from a cask, 
All blithe and boisterous,— but leave two more, 
With Reading made Uneasy for a task, 
To weep, whilst all their mates in merry sunshine bask. 

XXVII. 

Like sportive Elfins, on the verdant sod. 
With tender moss so sleekly overgrown, 
That doth not hurt, but kiss, the sole unshod. 
So soothly kind is Erin to her own ! 
And one, at Hare and Hound, plays all alone,— 
For Phelim's gone to tend his step-dame's cow ; 
Ah! Phelim's step-dame is a cankered crone! 
Whilst other twain play at an Irish row. 
And, with shillelah small, break one another's brow! 



THOMAS HOOD. 361 

XX vm. 

But careful Dominie, with ceaseless thrift, 
Now changeth ferula for rural hoe ; 
But, first of all, with tender hand doth shift 
His college gown, because of solar glow. 
And hangs it on a bush, to scare the crow : 
Meanwhile, he plants in earth the dappled bean. 
Or trains the young potatoes all a-row. 
Or plucks the fragrant leek for pottage green, 
With that crisp curly herb, called Kale in Aberdeen. 

XXIX. 

And so he wisely spends the fruitful hours, 
Linked each to each by labor, like a bee. 
Or rules in Learning's hall, or trims her bowers; 
Would there were many more such wights as he. 
To sway each capital academic 
Of Cam and Isis;^^ for, alack! at each 
There dwells, I wot, some dronish Dominie, 
That does no garden work, nor yet doth teach, 
But wears a floury head, and talks in flowery speech! 



Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham 
Academy. 

I. 

Ah me ! those old familiar bounds ! 
That classic house, those classic grounds 

My pensive thought recalls ! 
What tender urchins now confine. 
What little captives now repine, 

Within yon irksome walls ! 



362 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

II. 

Aye, that 's the very house ! I know 
Its ugly windows, ten a-row ! 

Its chimneys in the rear! 
And there 's the iron rod so high, 
That drew the thunder from the sky 

And turn'd our table-beer ! 

III. 

There I was birch 'd ! there I was bred ! 
There like a little Adam fed 

From Learning's woful tree ! 
The weary tasks I used to con ! — 
The hopeless leaves I wept upon ! — 

Most fruitless leaves to me !— 

IV. 

The suramon'd class ! — the awful bow ! — 
I wonder who is master now, 

And wholesome anguish sheds ! 
How many ushers now employs, 
How many maids to see the boys 

Have nothing in their heads I 



And Mrs. S * * * ?— Doth she abet 
(Like Pallas in the parlor) yet 

Some favor'd two or three, — 
The little Crichtons ^'^ of the hour. 
Her muffin-medals that devour. 

And swill her prize— bohea? 

VI. 

Aye, there 's the playground ! there 's the limOj 
Beneath whose shade in summer's prime 
So wildly have I read !— 



THOMAS HOOD. 363 

Who sits there now, and skims the cream 
Of young Romance, and weaves a dream 
Of Love and Cottage-bread ? 

VII. 

Who struts the Randall of the walk? 
Who models tiny heads in chalk? 
Who scoops the light canoe? 
What early genius buds apace? 
Where 's Poynter? Harris? Bowers? Chase? 
Hal Bay lis? blithe Carew? 

vm. 

Alack ! they're gone— a thousand ways 
And some are serving in " the Greys," 

And some have perish'd young! — 
Jack Harris weds his second wife ; 
Hal Baylis drives the wane of life; 

And blithe Carew— is hung ! 

IX. 

Grave Bowers teaches ABC 
To Savages at Owhyee; 

Poor Chase is with the worms!— 
All, all are gone— the olden breed !— 
New crops of mushroom boys succeed, 

'' And push us from our forms! ^' 

X. 

Lo ! where they scramble forth, and shout. 
And leap, and skip, and mob about. 

At play where we have play'd ! 
Some hop, some run (some fall), some twine 
Their crony arms; some in the shine. 

And some are in the shade I 



364 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

XI. 

Lo ! there what mix'd conditions run! 
The orphan lad ; the widow's son; 

And Fortune's favor'd care— 
The wealthy born, for whom she hath 
Mac-Adamized the future path— 

The Nabob's pamper'd heir ! 

XII. 

Some brightly starr'd— some evil born, — 
For honor some, and some for scorn, — 

For fair or foul renown ! 
Good, bad, indiff 'rent— none may lack! 
Look, here 's a White, and there 's a Black ! 

And there's a Creole brown! 

XIII. 

Some laugh and sing, some mope and weep, 
And wish their hw^sA sires would keep 

Their only sons at home; — 
Some tease the future tense, and plan 
The full-grown doings of the man, 

And pant for years to come ! 

XIV. 

A foolish wish! There 's one at hoop ; 
And four at fives? and five who stoop 

The marble taw to speed ! 
And one that curvets in and out. 
Reining his fellow-cob about. 

Would I were in his steed ! 

XV. 

Yet he would gladly halt and drop 
That boyish harness off, to swap 
With this world's heavy van— 



THOMAS HOOD. 365 



To toil, to tug. little fool! 
While thou canst be a horse at school 
To wish to be a man 

XVI. 

Perchance thou deem'st it were a thing 
To wear a crown,— to be a king! 

And sleep on regal down ! 
Alas ! thou know'st not kingly cares ; 
Far happier is thy head that wears 

That hat without a crown ! 

XVII. 

And dost thou think that years acquire 
New added joys ? Dost think thy sire 

More happy than his son ? 
That manhood's mirth ?— 0, go thy ways 
To Drury-lane when plays, 

And see how forced our fun ! 

XVIII. 

Thy taws are brave !— thy tops are rare !- 
Our tops are spun with coils of care, 

Our clumps are no delight ! — 
The Elgin^^ marbles are but tame, 
And 'tis at best a sorry game 

To fly the Muse's kite! 

XIX. 

Our hearts are dough, our heels are lead, 
Our topmost joys fall dull and dead, 

Like balls with no rebound ! 
And often with a faded eye 
We look behind, and send a sigh 

Towards that merry ground ! 



366 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

XX. 

Then be contented. Thou hast got 
The most of heaven in thy young lot ; 

There 's sk j-blue in thy cup ! 
Thou'lt find thy manhood all too fast — 
Soon come, soon gone! and age at last 

A sorry breaking up ! 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

"It has been well said, that the predominant characteristics of 
Hood's genius are humored fancies grafted upon melancholy impressions. 
Yet the term 'grafted' is hardly strong enough. Hood appears by natu- 
ral bent and permanent habit of mind, to have seen and sought for lu- 
dicrousness under all conditions— it was the first thing that struck him 
as a matter of intellectual perception or choice. On the other hand, 
his nature being poetic, and his sympathies acute, and the conditions of 
his life morbid, he very frequently wrote in a tone of deep and, indeed, 
melancholy feeling, and was amasterbothof hisown art and the reader's 
emotion; but, even in work of this sort, the intellectual exercitation, 
when it takes precedence of the general feehng, is continually fantastic, 
grotesque, or positively mirthful. Hood is too often like a man gi-inning 
awry, or interlarding serious and beautiful discourse with a nod, a wink, 
or a ieer, neither requisite nor convenient as auxiliaries to his speech. 
Sometimes, not very often, we are allowed to reach the end of a poem of 
his without having our attention Jogged and called off by a single inter- 
polation of this kind, and then we feel unalloyed — what we constantly 
feel also even under the contrary conditions— how requisite a poetic sense 
and choice a cunning of hand were his. On the whole, we can pronounce 
him the finest English poet between the generation of Shelley and the 
generation of Tennyson." By W. M. Rossetti, 



FREDERICK MARRYAT. 

1792-1848. 

Frederick Marryat, best known as Captain Marrvat, was born in 
London, 1792. His father was a wealthy gentleman of London, who sat 
some time in Parliament. As a boy he was rather ungovernable, run- 
ning away from school several times before he was fourteen, at which 
age he was allowed to enter the navy. During the first three years of 
his service he witnessed more than fifty engagements. He frequently 
received honorable mention for his conduct. He was the inventor of a 
code of signals and received the title of F.R.S. In 1829 he wrote 
and published his first novel, "Frank Mildmay.'' The field of nautical 
life, which he wove into his productions, had never beforebeen explored by 
any writer. He wrote twenty-four books in his twenty years of author- 
ship, besides editing the " Metropolitan Magazine," from 1832 to 1836. 
He died in 1848. 

The Charity School. 

Having some interest with the governors of a charity school 
near Brentford, Mr. Drummond lost no time in procuring me ad- 
mission: and before having quite spoiled my new clothes, having 
worn them nearly three weeks, I was suited afresh in a formal at- 
tire,— a long coat of pepper and salt, yellow leather breeches tied 
at the knees, a worsted cap with a tuft on the top of it, stock- 
ings and shoes to match, and a large pewter plate upon my 
breast marked with Xo. 63, which, as I was the last entered 
boy, indicated the sum total of the school. It was with regret 
that I left the abode of the Drummonds, who did not think it ad- 
visable to wait for the completion of the barge, much to the an- 
noyance of Miss Sarah and myself. I was conducted to the 
school by Mr. Drummond, and before we arrived met them all out 
walking. I was put in the ranks, received a little good advice 
from my worthy patron, who then walked one way. while we 

(367) 



368 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

walked another, looking like a regiment of yellow-thighed field- 
fares straightened into human perpendiculars. Behold, then, 
the last scion of the Faithfuls, peppered, salted, and plated that 
all the world might know that he was a charity boy, and that 
there was charity in this world. But if heroes, kings, great and 
grave men, must yield to destiny , lighter boys cannot be expected 
to escape, and I was doomed to receive an education, board, 
lodging, raiment, etc., free gratis, and for nothing. 

Every society has its chief ; and I was about to observe that 
every circle has its center, which, certainly, would have been 
true enough, but the comparison is of no use to me, as our circle 
had two centers, or, to follow up the first idea, had two chiefs — 
the chief schoolmaster, and the chief domestic — the chief mascu- 
line, and the chief feminine — the chief with the ferula, and the 
chief with the brimstone and treacle — the master and the matron, 
each of whom had their appendages, the one in the usher, the other 
in the assistant housemaid. But of this quartette, the master 
was not only the most important, but the most worthy of de- 
scription ; and, as he will often appear in the pages of my 
narrative long after my education was complete, I shall be very 
particular in my description of Dominie Dobiensis, as he de- 
lighted to be called, or dreary Dobbs, as his dutiful scholars 
delighted to call him. As in our school it was necessary 
that we should be instructed in reading, writing and cipher- 
ing, the governors had selected the Dominie as the most 
fitting person that had offered for the employment, because he 
had, in the first place, written a work that nobody could under- 
stand upon the Greek particles; secondly, he had proved himself 
a great mathematician, having, it was said, squared the circle by 
algebraical false quantities, but would never show the operation 
for fear of losing the honor by treachery. He had also discov- 
ered as many errors in the demonstrations of Euclid, as ever 
did Joey Hume in army and navy estim.ates, and with as much 
benefit to the country at large. He was a man who breathed 
certainly in the present age, but the half of his life was spent 
in antiquity, or in algebra. 



FREDERICK MARR YA T. 360 

Once carried away by a problem, or a Greek reminiscence, he 
passed away, as it were, from his present existence, and every- 
thing was unheeded. His body remained and breathed on his 
desk, but his soul was absent. This peculiarity was well known 
to the boys, who used to say, ''Dominie is in his dreams and 
talks in his sleep." 

Dominie Dobiensis left reading and writing to the usher, con- 
trary to the regulations of the school, putting the boys, if possi- 
ble, into mathematics, Latin and Greek. The usher was not over 
competent to teach the first two, and the boys not over willing 
to learn the latter. The master was too clever, the usher too ig- 
norant; hence, the scholars profited little. The dominie was 
grave and irascible, but he possessed a fund of drollery and the 
kindest heart. His features could not laugh, but his trachea 
did. The chuckle rose no higher than the rings of the windpipe, 
and then it was vigorously thrust back again, by the impulse of 
gravity,' into the region of his heart, and gladdened it with hid- 
den mirth in its dark center. The Dominie loved a pun, whether 
it was let off in English, Greek or Latin. The two last were made 
by nobody but himself, and not being understood, were, of 
course, relished by himself alone. But his love of a pun was a 
serious attachment: he loved it with a solemn affection — with 
him it was no laughing matter. 

In person. Dominie Dobiensis was above six feet, all bone and 
sinews. His face was long and his features large; but his pre- 
dominant feature was his nose, which, large as were the others, 
bore them down into insignificance. It was a prodigy — a ridi- 
cule ; but he consoled himself— OfM was called Naso. It was not 
an aquiline nose, nor was it an aquiline nose reversed. It was 
not a nose snubbed at the extremity, gross, heavy or carbuneled, 
or fluting. In all its magnitude of proportions it was an intel- 
lectual nose. It was thin, horny, transparent and sonorous. Its 
snuffle was consequential, and its sneeze oracular. The very 
sight of it was impressive; its sound, when blown in school hours, 
was ominous. But the scholars loved the nose for the warning 
which it gave; like the rattle of the dreaded snake which an- 

2 T. L.— 24 



370 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

nounces its presence, so did the nose indicate to the scholars that 
they were to be on their guard. The Dominie would attend to this 
world and its duties for an hour or two, and then forget his 
scholars and his schoolrooru, while he took a journey into the 
world of Greek or Algebra. Then when he marked x, y and z in 
his calculations, the boys knew that he was safe, and their stud- 
ies were neglected. 

Reader, did you ever witness the magic effects of a drum in a 
small village, when the recruiting party, with many-colored rib- 
ands, rouse it up with the spirit-stirring tattoo ? Matrons leave 
their domestic cares and run to the cottage door; peeping over 
their shoulders, the maidens admire and fear. The shuffling clowns 
raise up their heads gradually, until they stand erect and proud; 
the slouch in the back is taken out, their heavy walk is changed 
to a firm, yet elastic tread; every muscle appears more braced, 
every nerve by degrees newly strung; the blood circulates rap- 
idly, pulses quicken, hearts throb, eyes brighten; and, as the 
martial sound pervades their rustic frames, the Cimons^^ of the 
plow are converted, as if by magic, into incipient heroes for the 
field ; and all this is produced by beating the skin of the most 
gentle, most harmless animal of creation. 

Not having at hand the simile synthetical, we have resorted to 
the antithetical. The blowing of the Dominie's nose produced 
the very contrary effect. It was a signal that he had returned 
from his intellectual journey, and was once more in the schoolroom 
— that the master had finished with his x,y, z, and it was time 
for the scholars to mind their p's and q\s. At this note of warn- 
ing, like the minute roll among the troops, everyone fell into his 
place; half-munched apples were thrust into the first pocket, 
popguns disappeared, battles were left to be decided elsewhere— 
books were opened, and eyes directed to them— forms that were 
fidgeting and twisting in all directions, now took one regimen- 
tal inclined position over the desks — silence was restored, order 
resumed her reign, and Mr. Knapps the usher, who always 
availed himself of these interregnums, as well as the scholars, by 
deserting to the matron's room, warned by the well-known 



FREDERICK MA RR YA T. 371 

sound, htrsteired to his desk of toil; — such were the astonishing 
effects of a blow from Dominie Dobiensis's sonorous and peace- 
restoring nose. 

''Jacob Faithful, draw near," were the first words which 
struck upon my tympanum the next morning, when I had taken 
my seat at the farther end of the schoolroom. I rose and 
threaded my way through two lines of boys, who put out their 
legs to trip me up, in my passage through their ranks ; surmount- 
ing all difficulties, I found myself within three feet of the master's 
high desk, or pulpit, from which he looked down upon me, like 
the Olympian Jupiter upon mortals in ancient time. 

''Jacob Faithful, canst thou read ? " 

"No, I can't," replied I; "I wish I could." 

" A well-disposed answer, Jacob ; thy wishes shall be gratified. 
Knowest thou thine alphabet ? " 

" I don't know what that is." 

"Then thou knowest it not. Mr. Knapps shall forthwith in- 
struct thee. Thou shalt forthwith go to Mr. Knapps, who in- 
culcateth the rudiments. Levius puer, lighter boy, thou hast a 
crafty look." And then I heard a noise in his thorax that re- 
sembled the "cluck, cluck," when my poor mother poured her 
gin out of the great stone bottle. 

"My little naviculator," continued he, "thou art a weed 
washed on shore, one of Father Thames' cast-up wrecks. 
^ Fluviorum rex Eridanus.'' (cluck, cluck.) To thy studies; be 
thyself — that is, be faithful. Mr. Knapps, let the Cadmean art 
proceed forthwith." So saying, Dominie Dobiensis thrust his 
large hand into his right coat pocket, in which he kept his 
snuff loose, and taking a large pinch (the major part of which, 
the stock being low, was composed of hair and cotton abra- 
sions, which had collected in the corner of his pocket), he called 
up the first class, while Mr. Knapps called me to my first 
lesson. 

Mr. Knapps was a thin, hectic-looking young man; appar- 
ently nineteen or twenty years of age, very small in all his pro- 
portions, red ferret eyes, and without the least sign of incipient 



372 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

manhood ; but he was very savage nevertheless. Not being per- 
mitted to pummel the boys when the Dominie was in the school- 
room, he played the tyrant most effectually when he was left 
commanding officer. The noise and hubbub certainly warranted 
his interference— the respect paid to him was positively 727/. His 
practice was, to select the most glaring delinquent, and let fly 
his ruler at him, with immediate orders to bring it back. These 
orders were complied with for more than one reason ; in the first 
place, was the offender hit, he was glad that another should 
have his turn ; in the second, Mr. Knapps being a very bad shot 
(never having drove a Kamschatsdale team of dogs), he gen- 
erally missed the one he aimed at, and hit some other, who, if he 
did not actually deserve it at that moment, certainly did for 
previous, or would for subsequent, delinquencies. In the latter 
case, the ruler was brought back to him because there w^as no 
injury inflicted, although intended. However, were it as it may, 
the ruler was always returned to him ; and thus did Mr. Knapps 
pelt the boys as if they were cocks on Shrove Tuesday, to the 
great risk of their heads and limbs. I have little further to say 
of Mr. Knapps, except that he wore a black shalloon loose coat, 
on the left sleeve of which he wiped his pen, and upon the right, 
but too often, his ever sniveling nose. 

''What is that, boy?" said Mr. Knapps, pointing to the let- 
ter A. 

I looked attentively, and recognizing, as I thought, one of my 
father's hieroglyphics, replied, "That's halfabushel; " and I was 
certainly warranted in my supposition. 

''Half a bushel! You're more than half a fool. That 's the 
letter A." 

" No ; it 's half a bushel ; father told me so." 

" Then your father was as big a fool as yourself." 

"Father knew what half a bushel was, and so do I; that 's 
half a bushel." 

"I tell you it 's the letter A," cried Mr. Knapps, in a rage. 

" It 's half a bushel," replied I, doggedly. I persisted in my as- 
sertion, and Mr. Knapps, who dared not punish me while the 



FREDERICK MARRY AT. 373 

Dominie was present, descended his throne of one step, and led 
me up to the master. 

"I can do nothing with this boy, sir," said he, as red as fire; 
"he denies the first letter in the alphabet, and insists upon it 
that the letter A is not A, but half a bushel." 

"Dost thou, in thine ignorance, pretend to teach when thou 
camest here to learn, Jacob Faithful?" 

"Father alwaj'S told me that that thing there meant half a 
bushel." 

"Thy father, might, perhaps, have used that letter to signify 
the measure which thou speakest of, in the same way as I, in my 
mathematics, use diverse letters for known and unknown quanti- 
ties ; but thou must forget that which thy father taught thee, 
and commence de novo. Dost thou understand? " 

"No, I don't." 

" Then, little Jacob, that represents the letter A, and whatever 
else Mr. Knapps may tell thee, thou wilt believe. Keturn, Jacob, 
and be docile." 

I did not quit Mr. Knapps until I had run through the alpha- 
bet, and then returned to my form, that I might con it over at 
my leisure, puzzling myself with the strange complexity of forms 
of which the alphabet was composed. I felt heated and an- 
noyed by the constraint of my shoes, always an object of aversion 
from the time I had put them on. I drew my foot out of one, 
then out of the other, and thought no more of them for some 
time. In the meanwhile, the boys next me had pushed them on 
with their feet to the others, and thus they were shufliled along 
until they were right up to the master's desk. I missed them, 
and perceiving that there was mirth at my expense, I narrowly 
and quietly watched up and down, until I perceived one of the 
head boys of the school, who sat nearest the Dominie, catch up 
one of my shoes, and, the Dominie being then in an absent fit, drop 
it into his coat pocket. A short time afterwards he got up, went to 
Mr. Knapps, put a question to him, and while it was being an- 
swered, he dropped the other into the pocket of the usher, and, tit- 
tering to the other boys, returned to his seat. I said nothing; 



374 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

but when the hours of school were over, the Dominie looked at 
his watch, blew his nose, which made the whole of the boys pop 
up their heads like the clansmen of Rhoderick Dhu, when sum- 
moned by his horn, folded up his large pocket handkerchief slowly 
and reverently, as if it were a banner, put it into his pocket, and 
uttered in a solemn tone, " Tempus est ludendi.'' As this Latin 
phrase was used every day at the same hour, every boy in the 
school understood so much Latin. A rush from all the desks en- 
sued, and amidst shouting, yelling, and leaping, every soul dis- 
appeared except myself, who remained fixed to my form. The 
Dominie rose from his pulpit and descended, the usher did the 
same, and both approached me on their way to their respective 
apartments. 

"Jacob Faithful, why still porest thou over thy book— didst 
thou not understand that the hours of recreation had arrived? 
Why risest thou not upon thy feet like the others? " 

'* Cause I've got no shoes." 

"And where are thy shoes, Jacob?" 

"One 's in your pocket," replied I, " and t' other 's in his'n." 

Each party placed their hands behind, and felt the truth of 
the assertion. 

" Expound, Jacob," said the Dominie, " who hath done this? " 

"The big boy with the red hair, and a face picked all over with 
holes like the strainers in master's kitchen," replied I. 

"Mr. Knapps, it would be infra dig. on my part, and also on 
yours, to suffer this disrespect to pass unnoticed. Ring in the 
boys." 

The boys were rung in, and I was desired to point out the of- 
fender, which I immediately did, and who as stoutly denied the 
offense; but he had abstracted my shoe strings, and put them 
into his own shoes. I recognized them, and it was sufficient. 

" Barnaby Bcaeegirdle," said the Dominie, "thou art convicted 
not only of disrespect towards me and Mr. Knapps, but further, 
of the grievous sin of lying. Simon Swapps, let him be hoisted." 

He was hoisted ; his nether garments descended, and then the 
birch descended with all the vigor of the Dominie's muscular 



FREDERICK MARR YA T. 375 

arm. Barnaby Bracegirdle showed every symptom of his disap- 
proval of the measures taken; but Simon Swapps held fast, 
and the Dominie flogged fast. After a few minutes' flagellation, 
Barnaby was let down, his yellow tights pulled up, and the boys 
dismissed. Barnaby's face was red, but the antipodes were red- 
der. The Dominie departed, leaving us together, he adjusting his 
inexpressibles, I putting in my shoestrings. By the time Barnaby 
had buttoned up, and wiped his eyes, I had succeeded in standing 
in my shoes. . There we were tete-a-tete. 

'' Now, then,'' said Barnaby, holding one fist in my face, while 
with the other open hand he rubbed behind, '^come out in the 
playground, Mr. Cinderella, and see if I don't drub you within an 
inch of your life." 

"It 's no use crying," said I, soothingly, for I had not wished 
him to be flogged. '' What 's done can't be helped. Did it hurt 
you much? " This intended consolation was taken for sarcasm. 
Barnaby stormed. "Take it coolly," observed I. Barnaby 
waxed even more wroth. " Better luck next time," continued 
I, trying to soothe him. Barnaby was outrageous — he shook 
his fist and ran into the playground, daring me to follow him. 
His threats had no weight with me; not wishing to remain 
indoors, I followed him in a minute or two, when I found him 
surrounded by the other boys, to whom he was in loud and 
vehement harangue. 

"Cinderella, where 's your glass slippers," cried the boys, as I 
made my appearance. 

"Come out, you water rat," cried Barnaby, "you son of a 
cinder." 

" Come out and fight him, or else you 're a coward," exclaimed 
the whole host, from No. 1 to No. 66, inclusive. 

"He 's had beating enough already, to my mind," replied I, 
"but he 'd better nor touch me — I can use my arms." A ring 
was formed, in the center of which I found Barnaby and myself. 
He took off his clothes, and I did the same. He was much 
older and stronger than I, and knew something about fighting. 
One boy came forward as my second. Barnaby advanced, and 



376 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

held out his hand, which I shook heartily, thinking it was all 
over; but immediately received a right and left on the face, which 
sent me reeling backwards. This was a complete mystery, but it 
raised my bile, and I returned it with interest. I was very strong 
in my arms, as may be supposed, and I threw them about like 
the sails of a windmill, never hitting straight out, but with semi- 
circular blows, which descended on or about his ears. On the 
contrary, his blows were all received straight forward, and my 
nose and face were covered with blood. As I warmed with pain 
and rage, I flung about my arms at random, and Barna- 
by gave me a knockdown blow. I was picked up and sat upon 
my second's knee, who whispered to me as I spit the blood out 
of my mouth— "Take it coolly, and make sure when you hit." 
My own — my father's maxim— coming from another, it struck me 
with double force, and I never forgot it during the remainder 
of the fight. Again we were standing up face to face; again I re- 
ceived it right and left, and returned it upon his right and left 
ear. Barnaby rushed in— I was down again. " Better luck next 
time," said I to my second, as cool as a cucumber. A third and 
fourth round succeeded, all apparently in Barnaby's favor, but 
really in mine. My face was beat to a mummy, but he was 
what is termed groggy, from the constant return of blows on 
the side of the head. Again we stood up, panting and exhausted. 
Barnaby rushed at me, and I avoided him ; before he could return 
to the attack, I had again planted two severe blows upon his 
ears, and he reeled. He shook his head, and with his fists in the 
attitude of defense, asked me whether I had had enough. "He 
has," said my second, " stick to him now, Jacob, and 3'ou'll beat 
him." I did stick to him; three or four more blows, applied 
to the same part, finished him, and he fell senseless on the ground. 

"You 've settled him," cried my second. 

' ' What 's done can't be helped , ' ' replied I. " Is he dead ? ' ' 

"What's all this," cried Mr. Knapps, pressing his way through 
the crowd, followed by the matron. 

"Barnaby and Cinderella having it out, sir," said one of the 
elder boys. 



FREDERICK MARR YA T. 377 

The matron, who had already a liking for me because I was 
good-looking, and because I had been recommended to her care 
by Mrs. Drummond, ran to me. <'Well," says she, ''if the 
Dominie don't punish that big brute for this, I'll see whether I'm 
anybody or not,'' and taking me by the hand, she led me away. 
In the meantime, Mr. Knapps surveyed Barnaby, who was still 
senseless, and desired the other boys to bring him in, and lay 
him on his bed. He breathed hard, but still remained senseless, 
and a surgeon was sent for, who found it necessary to bleed him 
copiously. He then, at the request of the matron, came to me; 
my features were undistinguishable, but elsewhere I was all 
right. As I stripped he examined my arm. 

"It seemed strange," observed he, "that the bigger boy 
should be so severely punished ; but this boy's arms are like lit- 
tle sledge hammers. I recommend you," said he to the other 
boys, " not to fight with him, for some day or another he'll kill 
one of you." 

This piece of advice was not forgotten by the other boys, and 
from that day I was the cock of the school. The name of Cin- 
derella, given me by Barnaby in ridicule of my mother's death, 
was immediately abandoned, and I suffered no more persecution. 
It was the custom of the Dominie, whenever two boys fought, to 
flog them both, but in this instance it was not followed up, be- 
cause I was not the aggressor, and my adversary narrowly 
escaped with his life. I was under the matron's care for a week, 
and Barnaby under the surgeon's hands for about the same 
time. 

Neither was I less successful in my studies. I learned rapidly 
after I had conquered the first rudiments; but I had another 
difficulty to conquer, which was my habit of construing every- 
thing according to my confined ideas ; the force of association 
had become so strong that I could not overcome it for a consid- 
erable length of time. Mr. Knapps continually complained of 
my being obstinate, when, in fact, I was anxious to please as well 
as to learn. For instance, in spelling, the first syllable always 
produced the association with something connected with my 



378 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

former way of life. I recollect the Dominie once, and only once, 
gave me a caning, about a fortnight after I went to school. I 
had been brought up by Mr. Knapps as contumelious. 

''Jacob Faithful, how is this? Thine head is good, yet wilt 
thou refuse learning. Tell me now, what does c-a-t spell." It 
was the pitch pipe to cathead, and I answered accordingly. 
"Nay, Jacob, it spells cat, take care of thine head on thy next 
reply. Understand me, head is not understood. Jacob, thine 
head is in jeopardy. Now, Jacob what does m-a-t spell ? " 

'' Chafing mat,'' replied I. 

" It spells mat only, silly boy ; the chafing will be on my part 
directly. Now Jacob, what does cl-o-g spell? " 

^^ Dog kennel'' 

"Dog, Jacob, without the kennel. Thou art very contumeli- 
ous, and deservest to be rolled in the kennel. Now Jacob, this is 
the last time that thou triflest with me; what doth b-a-t spell? " 

^' Fur cap," replied I, after some hesitation. 

"Jacob, I feel the wrath rising within me, yet would I fain 
spare thee; if h-a-t spell fur cap, pray advise me, what doth c-a-p 
spell then?" 

^^Capstern. 

" Indeed, Jacob, thy stern as well as thy head are in danger, 
and I suppose, then, w-i-n-d spells windlass, does it not? " 

" Yes, sir," replied I, pleased to find that he agreed with me. 

" Upon the same principle, what does r-a-t spell? " 

"Rat, sir," replied I. 

" Nay, Jacob ; r-a-t must spell rattan, and as thou hast missed 
thine own mode of spelling, thou shalt not miss the cane." The 
Dominie then applied it to my shoulders with considerable unc- 
tion, much to the delight of Mr. Knapps, who thought the pun- 
ishment was much too small for the offense. But I soon extri- 
cated myself from these associations, as my ideas extended, and 
was considered by the Dominie as tlie cleverest boy in the school. 
AVhether it were from natural intellect, or from my brain having 
lain fallow, as it were, for so many years, or probably from the 
two causes combined, I certainly learned almost by instinct. I 



FREDERICK MARRY A T. 379 

read my lesson once over, and threw my book aside, for I knew 
it all. 

I had not been six months at the school, before I discovered 
that, in a thousand instances, the affection of a father appeared 
towards me under the rough crust of the Dominie. I think it was 
on the third day of the seventh month that I afforded him a day 
of triumph and warming of his heart, when he took me for the 
first time into his little study, and put the Latin Accidence in my 
hands. I learned my fi^rst lesson in a quarter of an hour; and I 
remember well how that unsmiling, grave man looked into my 
smiling eyes, parted the chestnut curls, which the matron would 
not cut off, from my brows, and saying " Bene fecisti, Jacobus.''^ ^'^ 
Many times afterwards, when the lesson was over, he would fix 
his eyes upon me, fall back on his chair, and make me recount all 
I could remember of my former life, which was really noth- 
ing but a record of perceptions and feelings. He could attend to 
me, and as I related some early and singular impression, some 
conjecture of what I saw, yet could not comprehend, on theshore 
which I had never touched, he would rub his hands with enthusi- 
asm, and exclaim, " I have found a new book — an album, where- 
on I may write the deeds of heroes and the words of sages. Car- 
issime, Jacobus ! ^^ how happy we shall be when we get into Virgil ! " 
I hardly need say that I loved him— I did so from my heart, and 
learned with avidity to please him. I felt that I was of conse- 
quence — my confidence in myself was unbounded. I walked 
proudly, yet I was not vain. My schoolfellows hated me, but 
they feared me as much for my own prowess as for my interest 
with the master; but still, many were the bitter gibes and innu- 
endoes which I was obliged to hear as I sat down with them at 
our meals. At other times, I held communication with the Dom- 
inie, the worthy old matron, and my books. We walked out 
every day , at first attended by Mr. Knapps, the usher. The boys 
would not walk with me unless they were ordered, and if ordered, 
most unwillingly. Yet, I had given no cause of offense. The ma- 
tron found it out, told the Dominie, and ever after that the Dom- 
inie attended the boys, and led me by the hand. 



380 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

This was of the greatest advantage to me, as he answered all 
my questions, which were not few, and each day I advanced in 
every variety of knowledge. Before I had been eighteen months 
at school, the Dominie was unhappy without my company, and 
I was equally anxious for his presence. He was a father to me, 
and I loved him as a son should love a father, and, as it will 
hereafter prove, he was my guide through life. 

But although the victory over Barnaby Bracegirdle and the 
idea of my prowess procured me an enforced respect, still the 
Dominie's good will towards me was the occasion of a settled 
hostility. Affront me, or attack me openly, they dare not; but 
supported, as the boys were, by Mr. Knapps, the usher, who was 
equally jealous of my favor and equally mean in spirit, they 
caballed to ruin me, if possible, in the good opinion of my master. 
Barnaby Bracegirdle had a talent for caricature, which was well 
known to all but the Dominie. His first attempt against me 
was a caricature of my mother's death, in which she was repre- 
sented as a lamp supplied from a gin bottle, and giving flame 
out of her mouth. This was told to me, but I did not see it. It 
was given by Barnaby to Mr. Knapps, who highly commended it, 
and put it into his desk. After which, Barnaby made an oft-re- 
peated caricature of the Dominie with a vast nose, which he 
showed to the usher as my performance. The usher understood 
what Barnaby was at, and put it into his desk without com- 
ment. Several other ludicrous caricatures were made of the 
Dominie, and of the matron, all of which were consigned to Mr. 
Knapps by the boys, as being the production of my pencil ; but 
this was not sufficient — it was necessary I should be more clearly 
identified. It so happened that one evening, when sitting with 
the Dominie at my Latin, the matron and Mr. Knapps being in 
the adjoining room, the light, which had burned close down, fell 
in the socket and went out. The Dominie rose to get another; 
the matron also got up to fetch away the candlestick with the 
same intent. They met in the dark, and ran their heads together 
pretty hard. As this event was only known to Mr. Knapps and 
myself, he communicated it to Barnaby, wondering whether I 



FREDERICK MARR YA T. 381 

should not make it a subject of one of mj caricatures. Barnaby 
took the hint ; in the course of a few hours, this caricature was 
added to the others. Mr. Knapps, to further his views, took an 
opportunity to mention with encomium my talent for drawing, 
adding that he had seen several of my performances. "The 
boy hath talent," replied the Dominie; "he is a rich mine from 
which much precious metal is to be obtained." 

"I hear that thou hast the talent of drawing, Jacob," said he 
to me a day or two afterwards. 

"I never had in my life, sir," replied I. 

" Nay, Jacob ; I like modesty ; but modesty should never lead 
to a denial of the truth. Remember, Jacob, that thou dost not 
repeat the fault." 

I made no answer, as I felt convinced that I was not in fault; 
but that evening I requested the Dominie to lend me a pencil, as 
I wished to trj^ and draw. For some days various scraps of my 
performance were produced, and received commendation. "The 
boy draweth well," observed the Dominie to Mr. Knapps, as he 
examined my performance through his spectacles. 

" Why should he have denied his being able to draw?" ob- 
served the usher. 

"It was a fault arising from a want of confidence or modesty 
— even a virtue, carried to excess, may lead us into error." 

The next attempt of Barnaby was to obtain the Cornelius 
Nepos which I then studied. This was effected by Mr. Knapps, 
who took it out of the Dominie's study and put it into Barnaby 's 
possession, who drew on the fly leaf, on which was my name, a 
caricature head of the Dominie, and under my own name, which I 
had written on the leaf, added in my hand [fecit) , so that it ap- 
peared Jacob Faithful (fecit). Having done this, the leaf was 
torn out of the book and consigned to the usher, with the rest. 
The plot was now ripe; and the explosion soon ensued. Mr. 
Knapps told the Dominie that I drew caricatures of my school- 
fellows. The Dominie taxed me, and I denied it. " So you denied 
drawing," observed the usher. 

A few days passed away, when Mr. Knapps informed the 



382 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

DomiDie that I had been caricaturing him and Mrs. Bately, the 
matron, and that he had proofs of it. I had then gone to bed; 
the Dominie was much surprised, and thought it impossible that 
I could be so ungrateful. Mr. Knapps said that he should 
make the charge openly, and prove it the next morning in the 
schoolroom; and wound up the wrong by describing me, in 
several points, as a cunning, good-for-nothing, although clever, 
boy. 

Ignorant of what had passed, I slept soundly; and the next 
morning found the matron very grave with me, which I could 
not comprehend. The Dominie, also, took no notice of my morn- 
ing salute; but supposing him to be wrapt in Euclid at the time, 
I thought little of it. The breakfast passed over and the bell 
rang for school. We were all assembled ; the Dominie walked in 
with a very magisterial air, followed by Mr. Knapps, who, instead 
of parting company, when he arrived at his own desk, continued 
his course with the Dominie to his pulpit. We all knew that there 
was something in the wind; but of all, perhaps, I was the least 
alarmed. The Dominie unfolded his large handkerchief, waved 
it, blew his nose and the school into profound silence. "Jacob 
Faithful, draw near," said he, in a tone which proved that the 
affair was serious. I drew near, wondering. "Thou hast been 
accused by Mr. Knapps of caricaturing, and holding up to the 
ridicule of the school, me — thy master. Upon any other boy 
such disrespect should be visited severely; but from thee, Jacob, 
I must add, in the words of Caesar, ' et tu Brute.'' I expected — 
I had a right to expect otherwise. Omnia vitia ingratitudo in se 
cowplectitur.^^ Thou understandest me, Jacob — guilty or not 
guilty?" 

" Not guilty, sir," replied I, firmly. 

" He pleadeth not guilty, Mr. Knapps; proceed, then, to prove 
thy charge." 

Mr. Knapps then went to his desk and brought out the draw- 
ings, with which he had been supplied by Barnaby Bracegirdle 
and the other boys. " These drawings, sir, which you will please 
to look over, have all been given up to me as the performance 



FREDERICK MA RR YA f. S83 

of Jacob Faithful. At first, I could not believe it to be true; 
but you will perceive at once that they are all by the same 
hand." 

''That I acknowledge," said the Dominie; "and all reflect 
upon my nose; it is true that my nose is of large dimensions, but 
it was the will of Heaven that I should be so endowed ; yet are 
the noses of these figures even larger than mine own could war- 
rant, if the limner were correct, and not malicious. Still have they 
merit," continued the Dominie, looking at some of them; and I 
heard a gentle cluck, cluck, in his throat, as he laughed at his 
own 7727.STepresentations. " ^Artes adumbratae meruit ceu sedula^ 
hiudem," as Prudentius hath it. I have no time to finish the 
quotation." 

"Here is one drawing, sir," continued Mr. Knapps, "which 
proves to me that Jacob Faithful is the party, in which you and 
Mrs. Bately are shown up to ridicule. Who would have been 
aware that the candle went out in your study, except Jacob 
Faithful?" 

"I perceive," replied the Dominie, looking at it through his 
spectacles when put into his hand, " the arcana of the study have 
been violated." 

" But, sir," continued Mr. Knapps, " here is a more convinc- 
ing proof. You observe this caricature of yourself, with his own 
name put to it— his own handwriting. I recognized it immedi- 
ately ; and, happening to turn over his Cornelius Nepos, observed 
the first blank leaf torn out. Here it is, sir; and you will 
observe that it fits on to the remainder of the leaf in the book 
exactly." 

" I perceive that it doth; and am grieved to find that such is 
the case. Jacob Faithful, thou art convicted of disrespect and 
of falsehood. Where is Simon Swapps ? " 

" If you please, sir, may not I defend myself? " replied I. "Am 
I to be flogged unheard ? " 

"Nay, that were an injustice," replied the Dominie; "but 
what defense canst thou offer? Oh puer infelix et sceleratus !^^^^ 

" May I look at these caricatures, sir? " said I. 



384 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

The Dominie handed them to me in silence. I looked them all 
over, and immediately knew them to be drawn by Barnaby 
Bracegirdle. The last particularly struck me. I had felt con- 
founded and frightened with the strong evidence brought against 
me; but this reassured me, and I spoke boldly: "These draw- 
ings are by Barnaby Bracegirdle, sir, and not by me. I never 
drew a caricature m my life." 

" So didst thou assert that thou couldst not draw, and after- 
wards proved by thy pencil to the contrary, Jacob Faithful." 

"I knew not that I was able to draw when I said so; but I 
wished to draw when you supposed I was able — I did not like that 
you should give me credit for what I could not do. It was to 
please you, sir, that I asked for the pencil." 

"I wish it were as thou statest, Jacob — I wish from my inmost 
soul that thou wert not guilty." 

"Will you ask Mr. Knapps from whom he had those drawings, 
and at what time? There are a great many of them." 

" Answer, Mr. Knapps, to the question of Jacob Faithful." 

"They have been given to me by the boys at different times, 
during the last month." 

" Well, Mr. Knapps, point out the boys who gave them." 

Mr. Knapps called out eight or ten boys, who came forward. 

"Did Barnaby Bracegirdle give you none of them, Mr. Knapps ?" 
said I, perceiving that Barnaby was not summoned. 

"No," replied Mr. Knapps. 

" If you please, sir," said I to the Dominie, " with respect to 
the leaf out of my Nepos, the Jacob Faithful was written by me, 
on the day that you gave it to me; but the fecit, and the carica- 
ture of yourself, is not mine. How it came there I don't know." 

"Thou hast disproved nothing, Jacob," replied the Dominie. 

"But I have proved something, sir. On what day was it I 
asked you for the pencil to draw with? Was it not on a Satur- 
day?" 

" Last Saturday week, I think it was." 

"Well, then, sir, Mr. Knapps told you the day before that I 
could draw." 



FREDERICK MARRYAT. ' 385 

''He did; and thou deniedst it." 

''How then does Mr. Knapps account for not producing the 
caricatures of mine, which he says that he has collected for a 
whole month? Why didn't he give them to you before?" 

"Thou puttest it shrewdly," replied the Dominie. "Answer, 
Mr. Knapps, why didst thou, for a fortnight at least, conceal 
thy knowledge of this offense? " 

" I wished to have more proofs," replied the usher. 

"Thou hearest, Jacob Faithful." 

" Pray, sir, did you ever hear me speak of my poor mother, 
but with kindness ? " 

" Never, Jacob ; thou hast ever appeared dutiful." 

" Please, sir, to call up John Williams." 

"John Williams, No. 37, draw near." 

" Williams," said I, " did not you tell me that Barnaby Brace- 
girdle had drawn my mother flaming at the mouth? " 

"Yes, I did." 

My indignation now found vent in a torrent of tears. " Now, 
sir," cried I, " if you believe that I drew the caricatures of you 
and Mrs. Bately— did I draw this, which is by the same person?" 
and I handed up to the Dominie the caricature of my mother, 
which Mr. Knapps had inadvertently produced at the bottom of 
the rest. Mr. Knapps turned white as a sheet. The Dominie 
looked at the caricature, and was silent for some time. At last 
he turned to the usher, — "From whom didst thou obtain this, 
Mr. Knapps?" 

Mr. Knapps replied in his confusion, "From Barnaby Brace- 
girdle." 

"It was but this moment thou didst state that thou hadst 
received none from Barnaby Bracegirdle. Thou hast contra- 
dicted thyself, Mr. Knapps. Jacob did not draw his mother; 
and the pencil is the same as that whicn drew the rest— er^o, 
he did not, I really believe, draw one of them. Iteprocul fraudes. 
God, I thank thee, that the innocent have been protected. Nar- 
rowly, hast thou escaped these toils, Jacob— cum populo et 
duce fraudulent um}'^ And now for the punishment." 

2 T. L.— 25 



386 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

' ' Barnaby Bracegirdle, thou gavest this caricature to Mr. 
Knapps; from whence hadst thou it? Lie not." 

Barnaby turned red and white, and then acknowledged that 
the drawing was his own. 

^' You boys," cried the Dominie, waving his rod, which he had 
seized, ''you who gave these drawings to Mr. Knapps, tell me 
from whom they came." 

The boys, frightened at the Dominie's looks, immediately re- 
plied in a breath, "From Barnaby Bracegirdle." 

<'Then, Barnaby Bracegirdle, from whom didst thou receive 
them?" inquired the Dominie. Barnaby was dumbfoundered. 
"Tell the truth; didst not thou draw them thyself, since thou 
didst not receive them from other people?" 

Barnaby fell upon his knees, and related the whole circum- 
stances, particularly the way in which the Cornelius Nepos had 
been obtained through the medium of Mr. Knapps. The indig- 
nation of the Dominie was now beyond all bounds. I never had 
seen him so moved before. He appeared to rise at least a foot 
more in stature; his eyes sparkled, his great nose turned red, 
his nostrils dilated, and his mouth was more than half open to 
give vent to the ponderous breathing from his chest. His whole 
appearance was withering to the culprits. 

"For thee, thou base, degraded, empty-headed, and venomous 
little abortion of a man, I have no words to signify my con- 
tempt. By the governors of this charity I leave thy conduct to 
be judged ; but until they meet, thou shalt not pollute and con- 
taminate the air of this school by thy presence. If thou hast 
one spark of good feeling in thy petty frame, beg pardon of this 
poor boy whom thou wouldst have ruined by th}' treachery. If 
not, hasten to depart, lest in my wrath I apply to the teacher 
the punishment intended for the scholar; but of which thou art 
more deserving than even Barnaby Bracegirdle." 

Mr. Knapps said nothing, hastening out of the school, and 
that evening quitted his domicile. When the governors met, he 
was expelled with ignominy. " Simon Swapps, hoist up Barnaby 
Bracegirdle." Most strenuously, and most indefatigably was the 



FREDERICK MARRYAT. 387 

birch applied to Barnaby, a second time through me. Barnaby 
howled and kicked, howled and kicked, and kicked again. At 
last the Dominie was tired. " Consonat omne nenms strepitu^ 
(for newus read schoolroom)," exclaimed the Dominie, laying 
down the rod, and pulling out his handkerchief to wipe his face. 
^^ Calcitrnt , ardescunt , gemiani cede bimemhres, ^^ t\iSit\SiS>t quota- 
tion is happy '' (cluck, cluck). 

He then blew his nose, addressed the boys in a long oration, 
paid me a handsome compliment upon my able defense, proved to 
all those who chose to listen to hin? that innocence would always 
confound guilt, intimated to Barnaby that he must leave the 
school, and then finding himself worn out with exhaustion, gave 
the boys ahohday that they might reflect upon what had passed, 
and which they duly profited by in playing at marbles and peg 
in the ring. He then dismissed the school, took me by the hand, 
and led me into his study, where he gave vent to his strong and 
affectionate feelings towards me, until the matron came to tell 
us that dinner was ready. 

CHARACTERIZATION. 

''He has,'' says Lord Lytton, "a frank, dashing; genius, and splashes 
about the water in grand style." ''His leading excellence," says Camp- 
bell, "is the untiring nerve of his light, easy, and flowing pen, together 
with a keen sense of the ridiculous, which, while it rarely leads him 
into broad and unmeaning farce, effectually preserves him from taking 
a dull, sententious, or matter of fact view, either of men or things. 
That there is no trace of effort in anything he does is in itself a charm. 
But, after all, his great and peculiar excellence is his originality — in that 
he is himself alone."' Professor Wilson calls him "an admirable writer," 
and says, "he would have stood in the first class of sea-scribes had 
he written uothing but Peter Simple." 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 

1829— 

D'Arcy AVentworth Thompson, the author of "Wayside Thouglits," 
was born in Cumberland County, England, in 1829. His early school 
life is described in the chapter whicli we have selected. He took the 
regular university course at Cambridge, and afterwards classical master 
in Edinbui'gh Academy. He became an ardent advocate of reform in the 
methods of classical instruction, and attained prominence on both sides 
of the Atlantic by the publication of his "Day Dreams of a School- 
master." Subsequently, he was invited to deliver a series of lectures 
in the Lowell Institute at Boston, out of which grew the book called 
"Wayside Thoughts." His writings, like those of Dickens, aroused 
public attention, and led to the reformation of abuses in the yjublic 
schools of England. He is at present Professor of Greek in Queen's Col- 
lege, Galway, Ireland. (See Teacher in Literature, pp. 410-447.) 

School Memories. 

(From "Wayside Thoughts," by D'Arcy W. Thompson.) 

It was on a sunny morning in a far away springtime that I 
stood between my mother and my brother, by the coach in 
fi'ont of the old Bnll-and-Mouth Inn. I was a little over seven 
years of age, had just doffed my frock or some equally semi-femi- 
nine garment, and was now encased in an imitation horse-hair 
shirt, yellow worsted stockings, fustian knee-breeches, a yellow 
hearth-rug petticoat, and a long blue gown ; a red leathern gir- 
dle went round my waist; a pair of parson's bibs hung down 
from my neck; and my hair was cut so short that I think I might 
have been used, with a little inconvenience to the user and my- 
self, as a hair brush. I cannot say what my poor dear mother 
thought of the grotesque-looking article before her. She was 
bewildered in the midst of her sorrow. I think she looked 
upon me as a ridiculously small parody on John the Baptist, 
(388) 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 389 

bound for years of sojourning in the wilderness and of feeding 
there on locusts and wild honey. I went into the wilderness; but, 
for nine of my twelve years there spent, I fed mentally on locusts 
only, and the food was very disagreeable. 

There were packed some six of us new bedizenments inside the 
coach; a greater number clustered on the exterior. To a spec- 
tator at a distance it would have seemed as though the convey- 
ance had been settled on by a swarm of unnaturally large bum- 
blebees. For the space of about ten minutes we were all too sad 
to speak; we were, in fact, all weeping— going, as it were, to 
the funeral of our respective childhoods. By and by I was seized 
with a happy thought. Underneath the seat I had a huge cake, 
within a wrapper of brown paper. It was to be given in charge 
of my matron on my arrival at St. Edward's-in-the-Fields; and 
the dispensation to me of a slice per diem would, it was supposed, 
extend my memory of home over at least a lunar month. I had 
recently purchased a large clasp knife; with this I anatomized 
the cake into thin eccentrical sections, and introduced myself 
by handing them around to my fellow-passengers. Some one 
from without must have scented our proceedings; for a large 
brown hand was inserted at the top of the window, by way 
of mute but intelligible petitioning. Slices were put within the 
brown hand, until all the outsiders had been supplied; and 
there was a pause for twenty minutes, w^hen the brown hand 
reappeared ; but the clasp knife was in my pocket and there 
w^as nothing left for it to cut. 

It was evening when we arrived at St. Edward 's. There was 
a posse of lads at the gate, curious to see the newcomers. In 
reply to the usual interrogatory I gave my name, which was 
misinterpreted into Dobson— a circumstance that gave me a 
short-lived popularity. The name of misconception was that of 
the chieftain of my ward or sleeping room. I was immediately 
ushered into the presence, and for a time w^as treated with 
general consideration, as the chieftain expressed a conviction of 
our distant relationship. Before very long, however, upon closer 
questioning, the real spelling of my name, together with the 



390 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

disappearance of the cake, was ascertained, and my borrowed 
plumage was incontinently stripped off me. Indeed, for the first 
time in my life, I knew what it was to have my bead punched, 
and, at the time, I had an indistinct idea that I deserved it. 

I may as well state, in passing, that the poor chieftain died 
not long after, in the infirmary, of some epidemic fever; and I 
felt exceedingly sorry at the occurrence, for it positively never 
struck me that his decease could be viewed in the light of a judg- 
ment. Strange to say, I caught the fever shortly after, and had 
to occupy the bed in which he died. My companions in the sick 
ward informed me of the fact, with the pardonable indiscretion 
of boyhood. The information was not of a cheering character, 
and led me to a forecasting of my destiny which experience has 
mercifully shown to be incorrect and premature. 

For a year and a half I remained in the country division of 
the great school of St. Edward's. The great majority of my 
companions were, for eleven months in the year, total exiles from 
home; dreary dwellers in Siberia; hermetically sealed from home- 
joys and merriment. My own matron was a pretty, kind, lady- 
like woman; the superintendent was a handsome, well-bred and 
kind-hearted gentleman ; but the discipline of the school contain- 
ing over four hundred boys was necessarily strict, and Latin and 
Greek, especially when administered in the dear old English 
fashion, was dry and tasteless food. I was a great deal more 
happily circumstanced than my comrades, for my mother had 
taken a tiny cottage at Spitalbrook, by Hoddesdon, some four 
miles from school, and I was allowed once a month to spend 
Saturday and Sunday at home. I remember how surprised they 
would appear at my rough ways and my usage of school slang; 
how young my mother used to seem to me ; how like a girl my 
brother; and oh ! the delight, after weeks of bullying in the play- 
ground and unintelligible mutterings in the schoolroom, to 
stand for a summer's day by the shallow narrow waters of the 
New River, angling for sticklebacks and minnows. 

My purpose here is not to discuss or criticise educational sys- 
tems, to describe and elaborate any dismally useless course of 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 891 

study. I wish only to recall the humorous associations of my 
boyhood and youth ; to stereotype, ere they vanish, and fix, as 
by photography, old Will-o'-the- Wisp whimsicalities; to sketch 
the social landscape of the old quaint school, with its occasional 
lights and its many shadows, before it be too late to sketch— be- 
fore the setting of the boy-memory within me. 

The head master in the commercial division of the school made 
a deep impression on me; in fact, he made several impressions on 
me in a variety of ways. He was a little fat man, like Napoleon, 
and had many special qualities for rule in common with his com- 
paratively more famous prototype. He was a short, dump3% 
spheroidal man, and walked with a spring in his gait, as though 
his feet, like those of dogs and cats, were fitted with elastic 
cushions. He seemed absolutely to spurn the earth; at all 
events, he never seemed to think it worth looking at, but ap- 
peared to be evermore on tiptoe, gazing over an invisible wall at 
some object a foot or two beneath a distant horizon. His 
round, self-satisfied, but uncomely face was like a full moon when 
suffused with the redness indicative of coming wind ; perspira- 
tion gathered easily on his forehead ; and in the exercise of his 
duties he mopped himself with a red silk handkerchief, and 
puffed and puffed continually. This subdued kind of snorting 
was very impressive. As he always held his head a little thrown 
back, it seemed as if he were ducking upward oat of too thick a 
medium, and taking in breaths of thinner air like a grampus. 
During our writing hours he would intone, or more correctly 
speaking, toll vocally, certain sentences, which were the axioms 
of calligraphy — the thirty-nine articles of our copy-book creed. 
One article I remember to this day, for it seemed in a strikingly 
graphic way to describe the personnel of the speaker : Round at 
the top and round at the bottom, and thick from top to bottom. 

Every now and then the monotony of our daily routine would 
be tragically, but not altogether unpleasingly, diversified by an 
execution. Some miserable urchin, whose round-hand would 
have run into a smallpox of blots, would be ordered into the 
dark lobby, between the inner and the outer door, at the far 



392 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

corner of the school. Four comrades, pressed into the hateful 
service, would accompany him ; one would serve as horse, two of 
them would have a leg apiece to hold secure, and the fourth would 
have the more ignoble task assigned him of holding tight over 
the wretch's head the extremity of his garments, so as to leave 
exposed the orthodox surface for birch corrections. Meanwhile, 
over the listening schoolroom would be heard the sound as of a 
hailstorm, and stifled shrieks that seemed to issue from out a 
bull of Phalaris.^^ Then the hailstorm would cease, and the 
shrieks would die away; and from the den would emerge on tip- 
toe our little fat judge and ruler, with his chin very high in the 
air, and a great deal of perspiration on his forehead, and puffing 
from his lips frequent and audible puffs of magisterial wind. 
By and by would follow the satellites, with the look of having 
shared in some serious and dignifying responsibility; and lastly 
would reappear the culprit himself, to be, in the estimation of his 
schoolfellows, a martyr for the day and a hero for a week. 

I humbly, but devoutly, thank my stars that I was never so 
mart^a'ized. It is not the physical pain that I would so strongly 
deprecate; for in my time I was often subjected to punishments 
more severe than the ordinary birch-flogging, and they left, for 
the most part, no permanent feeling of shame or anger behind 
them. The horror of the old, time-honored punishment consists 
in the unspeakably ludicrous position into which a poor fellow is 
hoisted between earth and heaven, a sight to set the gods on 
high Olympus roaring over their nectar with inextinguishable 
laughter. To this very day, and on this very day, they are 
guffawing at the tragico-comedy, as it is being enacted in the 
grammar schools of dear, conservative, willful, pig-headed old 
England. 

A very singular superstition was jjrevalent in this junior 
school for a time, and I have little doubt that it has descended 
by tradition. From a misinterpretation of a verse in the Atha- 
nasian creed it was supposed that the muttered repetition of the 
word ' ' Trinity ' ' was a specific against all peril . Vicarious repeti- 
tion was included in the doctrine. I have known a big fellow, 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 393 

when summoned unexpectantly to the master's desk, pass the 
order round for everyone to say "Trinity" for him as fast as 
possible, and for a few seconds there would be some fifty of us 
chattering the word as quickly as our tongues could move. 
Sometimes the charm failed, and vengeance would be taken by a 
bully upon the little wretches, whom he logically supposed to 
have uttered the mystic word with insufficient vehemence, rapid- 
ity and faith. 

There were also two terrible legends current, and universally 
believed. It was said that, many years ago, two infatuated 
boys had sinned be^^ond repentance in the following ways : one 
had said his prayers backwards, and the other had written a 
letter in his own blood to the Power of Evil, and placed it beneath 
his pillow before going to sleep. The morning after, the beds of 
both were found empty, and no tidings were ever heard of either. 
The cause and manner of their disappearance was horrible, but 
obvious. There were several big boys, whose statements admitted 
of no questioning, who had been told by the night watchers that 
the ghosts of these miserable young sinners were continually seen 
after midnight in the infirmary back-yard. 

Underneath the writing school were very extensive passages 
and cellars, forming a species of petty labyrinth. I ventured 
once a considerable way inside, but suddenly was seized with a 
panic, and scurried back to the light of day. This was the 
favorite haunt of an old man, named Bush, who was general 
scavenger and performer of all nasty work. He was probably 
the grimiest man in the world outside of Poland. Had the poet 
Eschylus once set eyes on him, he would have styled him, in his 
own boldly figurative way, ' The Twin-Brother of Dirt.' On all 
hands he was suspected, not without cause, of being an ogre. 
Bones in large quantities were known to be stored up in his secret 
cave. One very big boy in my own sleeping room once informed 
us that he had watched his time, when Bush was otherwise en- 
gaged, and had penetrated within the cave until he had reached 
a spot where was a kind of well, and round the well were great 
piles of bones. He had dipped his finger in the well, and, to his 



394 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

horror, had found that the Hquid it contained was blood! The 
bones, therefore, were, in all probability, not beef or mutton 
bones ! One little Paynim miscreant made some puerile sugges- 
tion about red ink and dinner remains; but he was at once sum- 
marily dealt with by the justly-offended narrator, to the great 
satisfaction of all us believers, and to the entire removal of his 
own pestilent and unnatural incredulity. 

It was not long after the recital of these horrors that Bush 
left the service of the school, and he was frequently seen driving 
a gig upon the high road, with his face approximately clean and 
a white shirt on. The report current in the outer town was, that 
he had inherited a small fortune from a distant relative; but the 
people of the outer town knew nothing about the winding cellars, 
the pool of blood, and the huge heaps of human bones. 

Occasionally, on half holidays, we were taken out in charge of 
a beadle, in long files of two and two, for walks into the coun- 
try. These rambles were, to us hermits, sweet beyond the 
conception of ordinary loose-tied boys. The great majority of 
us were the merest chits; and yet for us sun after sun went 
drearily rising and drearily setting, and there was no pleasant 
talk and gossip over a breakfast table, no romping in garden or 
orchard, no birds'-nesting in lane or wood, no cake or fruit by 
comfortably-lighted table after dinner, no kiss before going to 
bed. These country walks seemed to loosen for a time our fetters, 
and carry us in a strange way, miles and miles and miles nearer 
home. Our favorite walk was one that led towards a slightly 
undulating hill, on the side of which was a deep precipitous pit. 
Were I to pass that pit nowadays, I should possibly and foolish- 
ly conjecture that it had been quarried for building purposes. 
We had, however, the word of our guide, good and kindly* Mr. 
Grossman, that this was the identical pit in which had lived, for 
years, the cannibal Sawny Beany, with his traveler-crunching 
family. Some boys, whose eyes were very keen, or whose imagi- 
nations were very lively, could discern fragments of skeletons 
at the bottom of the den. Once lying prostrate on the ground, 
I peeped down into the horrible hole, but failed to make out any 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 395 

decided specimens of human remains. The depth, however, of the 
place confirmed me in my previous and well-grounded ideas re- 
specting the size of men and women, and especially of cannibals, 
in past ages. 

In addition to our ordinary playground, we had, in summer, 
a large field for cricket and similar sports. The field was 
bounded by an easily-surmounted wooden paling, and beyond 
this wooden wall lay the turnips of one Mullins. These were ap- 
ples of the Hesperides, watched incessantly by the dragons, 
Allen and Grossman. At times an adventurer would be gath- 
ering the sweet fruit into his lap for his comrades and himself 
when Allen would drop, as it were, down from the clouds 
like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, would kindly assist the weep- 
ing trespasser to the right side of the frail boundary, would 
march him off with a numerous and sympathizing, but mys- 
teriously-delighted, escort to the ofl3ce of the superintendent, and 
the offender w^ould be executed on the spot, untried, unshriven. 
For my own part, I never once crossed over into Mullins'; per- 
haps I was too discreet; perhaps I was too much of a coward. 
Since the days of boyhood, however, I have too often had the 
foolish hardihood to climb over into Mullins', and gather tur- 
nips, fancying they were golden apples; but an unseen Allen has 
invariably detected me, and led me off to an unseen super- 
intendent, who has invariably administered the rod. 

As a brain left to feed upon itself, and denied the invigorating 
and cheering influence of society and books, turns morbid and 
hypochondriac, so our coterie, cut off from the outer world, was 
a prey, from time to time, to the most fantastic panics and illu- 
sory alarms. One panic, in particular, I remember. In extent 
and groundlessness it had an antitype in the panic at Athens 
consequent upon the mutilation of the Hermae.'^^ Chartism at the 
time was the bugbear of England, as is Fenianism of modern 
Ireland. Information of a specific kind had been brought in a 
mysterious way to some boy or boys unknown, that the school 
was destined for pillage, and that a Chartist spy was secreted in 
the lower chamber beneath some bed in number seven ward. Not 



396 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

a soul would enter that chamber. A general council was held, and 
it was decreed that lots should be cast among the members of 
the unhappy ward for the appointment of an enfant perdu — Si 
solitary, forlorn hope. At this moment a volunteer stepped for- 
ward. His name was Jones; a name never to be forgotten. 
I think it never will be forgotten. A second David, he simply 
armed himself with the leaden plug of the lavatory, entered 
alone the suspected chamber, and crept in the dark under 
the two long rows of beds. Meanwhile, we were listening 
below for the crash of weapons, or the sound of fire-arms. 
We heard nothing; and after awhile Jones reappeared, dis- 
pelling our alarms. The Chartists must have been made 
aware of our state of preparation and the resolution of our 
leader; for their original intentions of pillage and murder were 
never carried out. 

When sisters and cousins of a marriageable age live together, 
how they must flutter with curiosity and trepidation and hope, 
when a likeable young fellow comes, for the first time, among 
them ! Meanwhile, he poises like a hawk, swoops down, and, un- 
less he miss his aim, clutches one of the sweet flutterers, and away 
with her he flies to his own cold bachelor nest. How bewildered 
must be the brain of a chicken, in among a brood of brother and 
sister chickens, when he sees the cook from time to time seize 
upon a companion or two, and carry them away to a bourne 
from whence chickens never return ! Must he not wonder occa- 
sionally when his own turn will come to be hurried away, to have 
his neck twisted, and be roasted or boiled to make into a deli- 
cious curry? Something of the kind were my feelings when I 
heard at distant intervals a list of names read out that, either 
from superannuation or progress in study, were destined to fill 
up vacancies in the great school in the metropolis. 

What marvelous legends were afloat among us regarding that 
great Ninevite school! It had (in fact as well as in report) a thou- 
sand boys ; and someof the boys in thenautical school wereof im- 
mense strength and superhuman stature — Brobdignag boys; any 
one of whom could demolish with a blow a butcher or a barge- 



PARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 397 

man; and at the head of the school, far removed from the thick 
lower atmosphere, in a clear, serene empyrean, were the seven 
Hellenists — the seven Latin and Greek sages — seven lamps of 
learning — a sacred brotherhood — a particular people. It was 
said that every Saturday they had for a revisal lesson, the last 
long sentence that covers nearly half a page in the Latin Delec- 
tus ; that they had each a guinea a week pocketmoney allowed 
them by the government; and that they were continually being 
asked to dine with the Lord Mayor. 

At last the list was read in public wherein my name appeared. 
I had been hitherto a boy, and had thought as a boy ; but now 
I was to put away boyish things. The great school was in the 
heart of Nineveh, and Nineveh was the great pulsing heart of 
the big world. If a boy worked hard in this great central school, 
would he not receive the baton of Hellenisty ? And would not 
a Hellenist dine habitually with the Lord Mayor, and knock his 
forehead against uncomfortably low-ceilinged skies? And yet it 
was a pity to leave St. Edward's-in-the-Fields; for the pretty 
matron had been kind and motherly ; the clerical Draco who had 
flogged me with his riding whip had been replaced by a some- 
what stern but just and earnest and high-principled gentleman ; 
Ramsay, the gigantic but gentle usher, was a man not to be 
easily forgotten; the writing master, with all his pomp and 
glory and superfluity of inner wind, was a kindly man and an able 
teacher, and severe only to the profligate and abandoned that 
defaced their conscience and copy books with unnecessary and 
willful blots. Not an enemy was left, but very many friends. 
Moreover, Spitalbrook was near at hand, and would be passed 
by the coach as it went its London journey. Good-bye to the 
sticklebacks and the minnows ! The invisible policeman says : 
<' Move on, my little man, you must move on ! " 

Since then, I have heard, on two or three other occasions, the 
same mysterious voice. When I left St. Edwards for Camelot; 
when I left Camelot for Dunedin ; when I had bidden good-bye to 
some forty little fellows in Dunedin, and closed the door upon 
them, to leave for the Citie of the Tribes. What a strange and 



S9$ THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

awful feeling must be his whom this policeman, Destiny, grips 
vice-like by the arm for the last time, pressing a baton under- 
neath his ribs, and saying in a cold but very impressive tone: 
"Come, sir, the thoroughfare is blocked up; you r^'aWy must 
move on." 

Naked we came into this world, and naked we go out of it. I 
brought nothing with me to St. Edward 's-in-the-Fields, and 
I took nothing away save a little writing and arithmetic, 
and a very small amount of harmless rubbish in the way of Greek 
and Latin rules, that had been administered in an unintelligible 
phraseology. Nay, nay; I took away something — a few pleas- 
ant and affectionate memories. Consequently, I may say that I 
left St. Edward's-in-the-Fields with my heart charged, but not 
crammed, with boy affections, and the carpet-bag of my intelli- 
gence filled, partly with luggage, and partly, by way of remplis- 
snge, with cinders, gravel, sawdust, and marine stores. 

Imagine, reader, what your sensations would be, supposing 
that, without your waking, you were lifted out of bed, placed 
softly in a wheelbarrow, and hurled off and turned over into the 
middle of Rag-Fair. Something of the kind were my sensa- 
tions on first arriving at the great Ninevite school. It was a 
kind of noisy, multitudinous, ill-regulated city. My individu- 
ality seemed merged in a great sea of life; instead of spread- 
ing out from a little boy into a big boy, I collapsed from a 
little boy into a dwarf, a pigmy, a hop-o'-my-thumb, a gnat, a 
nonentity. Like a digit, under an arithmetical process of evanes- 
cence, I went out. Years, entire years, passed over, leaving me 
still in bewilderment. Life was void, chaotic, and shrouded in a 
mist wherein I was mechanically groping. The morning of a day 
would be spent in the grammar school over some three or four 
lines of Pha'drus. And what a curious language that Latin was? 
Why, an ordinary uninspired lad could no more scent out a 
hide-and-seek verb than a cow could set at a partridge. You 
should have Lupus, a nominative, here, and inquit, its verb, 
lines away, out of sight anywhere. Sometimes, upon a Monday, 
an orphan lamb in the accusative case would be bleating after a 



PARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 399 

mother verb that had been butchered and parsed on Saturday. 
Who was Phsedrus? Was he a schoolmaster in the days when 
men talked Latin? But when they did talk it, used they to 
parse all the words as they went along, and decline the word 
for "soup" if they asked for soup at dinner, and run the chance 
of dative cases sticking in their throats like fish bones. But 
what on earth had we little fellows done to the governors that 
we should be forced to learn Latin? Would it not be far bet- 
ter to catch the measles, and go to the infirmar3% and lie in bed 
for weeks, and have oranges to suck when we were convalescent? 
But really, after all, what had we done to the governors that 
they should go out of their way to employ such a lot of clergy- 
men to feed us, day after day, with this curious and nasty-tasting 
and utterly indigestible Latin and Greek food? How would 
they like it themselves? Some of them, I afterwards found out, 
had either never swallowed the same kind of intellectual saw- 
dust, or had thrown it up long before they reached manhood. 
Perhaps, they really believed this food to be wholesome; 
perhaps, they had no other mental food to give. They cer- 
tainly could not be feeding us on intellectual garbage out of 
pure malice, for the whole institution was a colossal monu- 
ment of benevolence; the greatest monument of the kind in the 
known world. We numbered in all some fifteen hundred pupils. 
From the moment a lad entered to the day he left school, all 
he was called on to provide for himself were his handkerchiefs 
and his gloves. Education, board, clothing, lodging, all were 
gratuitously given. An invalid was treated with greater care 
than any private means could afford, and with as much kindness 
as the kindest home could bestow. Indeed, apart from the gen- 
erous medical arrangements, the pleasant face, cheer}^ voice, and 
genial ways of our resident physician were enough to make a 
child reconciled to any illness but one involving acute pain. 
With benevolence underlying and permeating our institution, 
when every article of our physical food was of the best quality, 
why was the greater part of our mental food so tasteless, so 
unwholesome, so gritty? Nature, they say, is a riddle past 



400 THE TEACHER IN LITEUATVRE. 

finding out. I take it she is but a poor riddle in comparison 
with the crotchets of humanity. 

In the afternoon we would have our three hours in the writing 
school — and that was generally great fun. After an hour and a 
half of reading and ciphering, the remainder of the time was de- 
voted to writing. A skillful hand could get through his work in 
half an hour, and so save an hour for amusement. Idlers bj the 
dozen would be walking in amongst the desks, pretending to 
make pens, serve out ink, or borrow knives, but in reality pro- 
claiming lotteries, catering for prick-books, selling, at outrageous 
profits, almonds, raisins, toffy, sausages, saveloys, and slices 
of roly-poly pudding. Sometimes, at briefest notice, the senior 
master would make a visit of general inspection, and a sudden 
destruction would come unawares upon the idlers in Pen-and-ink 
Fair — a temporary deluge would overwhelm them; but on the 
morrow the interspaces of the desks would be thronged again, 
and commerce would be holding on her irrepressible way. 

In this singular school-market I was always a purchaser; that 
is, when I had the wherewithal to purchase. Almonds were sold at 
twenty the penny; raisins, not Muscatel, at thirty; cakes of toffy 
and other articles were so divided into pennyworths as to give a 
regular profit of cent per cent. I have known a skillful salesman 
make his five shillings by the week's end out of an investment of 
sixpence on the Monday morning. One holiday, as I returned 
school wards with a sixpence in my pocket, I was seized with the 
spirit of covetousness, and purchased, with interest to sell, a little 
round of toffy. That evening in bed I divided it into twelve penny- 
worths, wrapped the same neatly in paper, placed them beneath 
my pillow, and made my calculations. By next evening I should 
have a shilling, which would be two shillings by the evening after, 
and then four, and then eight, and so on. It reminded me of the 
old sum about the nails of the horseshoe. For the time I had 
forgotten the story of the dreamer in the Arabian Nights. In a 
year I should have more money than I should know what to do 
withal ; I should be richer than both my uncles put together. 
But soft; what, after all, was the use of money? Was not 



UARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 401 

enjoyment the end of man ? If I just ate six of my pennyworths, 
I could sell the other six, and buy another cake; redivide it, eat 
six pieces, and sell the other six; buy a third cake, a fourth cake, 
and so on, forever and ever. I had discovered a simple but sure 
method for living eternally at no cost on toffy. So I ate the first 
six pennyworths. And then I thought with what anxieties and 
troubles the pursuit of commerce was accompanied ! Had I not 
already eaten my six pennyw^orths? Consequently I could not 
anyways be a loser. If I ate the other six, should I not, without 
an effort, in one evening, have made a clear profit on myself of 
sixpence? The specious reasoning was conclusive to a willing 
judgment. And so I ate the remaining six pennyworths. And this 
was the first and last attempt I ever made in the way of retail 
traffic. 

Fagging and bull3ing prevailed at this old school, as, indeed, 
at all old schools. Fagging may, perhaps, with due restrictions, 
produce healthy moral effects ; it may be employed to make dull 
physical force deferential to intellectual superiority. Bullying is, 
of course, an unmitigated evil. I doubt whether, at any school 
of any epoch, this hateful system was more fully carried out than 
in the earlier years of my Ninevite school days. I was, in all, 
nearly eleven years at this one school. Of these years, during 
the first five I was a Gibeonite, and hewed wood, and carried 
water ; for the next two years I had my fag, and was to some 
extent an oppressor, and employed and bullied manyGibeonites; 
and during the last three years, having been, as it were, trans- 
lated, I ignored all connection with my younger fellow-school- 
boys, and lived in the serene contemplation of my own unap- 
proachable greatness and wisdom. And here I would parenthet- 
ically remark that the most conceited peacock living might 
serve as a model of humility, if contrasted with an average mem- 
ber of a senior class in an English public school. To illustrate 
the miseries endured by the class of Gibeonites,! give a few of the 
many anecdotes that crowd upon my reluctant memory. 

Poor, honest Prior, gentle as a sheep, huge as a buffalo, slept 
next to a wolf of a bully, Smith. An evil conscience kept the 

2 T. L.— 26 



402 THE TEACHER IX LITERATURE. 

former awake one night to an unusually late hour, when at 
length he roused up Smith to tell him that the day had been his 
birthday, and that a plum-cake was in his settle, and that a slice 
was at his disposal. '' Had you told me of that before," was the 
reply he heard, "had you told me of this before, I should have 
given you a bit." As it was, the poor owner of the cake had to 
make it over in toto to the wolf, and had, furthermore, to pass a 
considerable part of the night on the floor beneath his bed, for 
venturing to keep over so many unnecessary hours a secret of so 
important a nature. 

A wretch of the name of Turquand came suddenly upon a 
little friend of mine, knowing the latter to be in possession of half 
a crown. '' Come," said ho, " I '11 give you two-and-six for your 
half a crown." My friend gave up his money, and received in 
turn two shillings and six shots. He burst into tears, but dried 
them per force, as he was given to understand that any whining 
on his part would lead to a substitution for the two shillings of 
two bullets. With a humor prefigurative of legal after-life the 
bully observed that even then he would be fulfilling his offer to 
the letter. 

The same scoundrel gave another instance of his sense of fun 
in dealing with the same little friend. He gave an empty common 
stoneink-bottle— which, when full, would have cost one penny — to 
keep in charge, urging upon him the greatest possible caution. 
Timed Danaos et dona ferentes^'' would have passed through the 
little fellow's brain, had he known enough of Latin at the time. 
At all events, the meaning of the words did pass through his mind, 
and for days the clumsy bottle was carried about in his pocket, 
and placed at night beneath his pillow. By and by he grew se- 
cure and tired, and careless, and deposited the charge in his set- 
tle. Scarcely an hour elapsed before restitution was demanded. 
The culprit ran to his settle, but the deposit was gone. Tremb- 
ling, he disclosed the fact to Turquand, who burst into well-sim- 
ulated weeping, seized the defaulter by the hair, and shrieked : 
"You little thief, that bottle was given me by my grandfather on 
his deathbed ; you shall give me five shillings for it, or you'll 



D'ARCY WEXTWORTH THOMPSON. 403 

break my heart ! " He would have broken the little fellow's head, 
if the promise of payment had not been instantly given. The 
money was paid in full, by installments out of the child's pocket 
money. 

In course of time the system became intensified in cruelty. The 
bullies, or brassers, as they were termed , were as terrible and daring 
as Cilician pirates. On a general holiday, they would be stationed 
near the gate, when the little fellows came home at evening from 
their visits, laden with cake and fruit, and rich with small silver 
coins. The majority of them would reach their beds with pockets 
as empty as they had left withal that morning. Some cautious 
urchins w^ould devour all their treasures on the road, and would 
pay dearlj" — not too dearl}^ — for their caution or temerity. The 
evil, at length, became so flagrant, that the cry of the oppressed 
went up to the ears of the head master ; a special commission of 
inquiry was instituted ; disclosures of the most appalling kind 
were made; condign vengeance was taken in public upon dozens 
of the pirates; and the land had rest for years, and has rest, I 
trust, to this day. 

When I look back upon the condition of the school in these 
years, I seem to have before me a picture in little of old mediaeval 
and older heroic days. In the Hellenists I see the studious and 
exclusive searchers after Latin and Greek philosopher's stone ; in 
the brassers I recognize the barons of the middle ages, who had 
all the half-pence going in their days ; and in the little ones I see 
the burghers who paid the piper, the retainers who did the dirtier 
work, and the general rabble who came in for the kicks and cuff- 
ings. How I should like a return of the old feudal times, if I were 
only sure of being a baron! How I should like to fight round 
windy Troj^, if I were only the son of a goddess, and could scurry 
the poor Trojan fellows like locusts into the river, without one of 
them having a chance of grazing my royal and semi-celestial 
shins ! How splendid it must have been for a great chieftain, gifted 
specially of Heaven with superhuman shoulders, indefatigable 
hips, and an impenetrable hide, mounted on a light car drawn by 
divine steeds, his sword upon his thigh, his shining shield in front, 



404 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

and a groat tree of a lance in his terrible hand, to rush careering 
in among a crowd of leather-clad, trembling louts, and prog, and 
pierce, and skewer, and stab and slash, until at length he ceased 
from very exhaustion, and doffed his helm, and with the fringe of 
what nijiy be called his frock coat, wiped the sweat from off his 
steaming forehead in the middle of a great slaughterhouse of 
groans and glory ! 

Our games w^ere singularly rough, and strictly heroic and 
feudal in their administration of half-pence to the leaders, and 
kicks to the plebs. Two of the favorite games of the nobilitj^ 
were '' Gates" and ''Cheating Kunning-over." In all essentials 
they were at one. For the latter, a small body took possession 
of the center of some specified alley in the playground, and 
numerous antagonists crossed through and passed them from 
side to side. All whom they captured and carried back to the 
side of starting were pressed into their service. When only a very 
few chieftains were left uncaught, then the work waxed hot. The 
middle rank of captors would divide, to let all pass but one, and 
would close upon him. Meanwhile the other chiefs would hasten 
to touch their goal, for the game then admitted of their return- 
ing, without possibility of capture, to the rescue of their brother. 
Strange to say, the central ranks were compelled to act only de- 
fensively in their captures, while the outsiders were allowed to 
strike anywhere but on the face. 

In the game of " Gates " a single pair would stand out face to 
face at arm's distance in the center of some division, and the out- 
siders would run through from goal to goal, backwards and for- 
wards. You were considered a prisoner, if one of the "gates" 
could hold you while he or his comrades counted some special 
number, and thereupon you swelled the lines of the captors. At 
length some thirty lads would be standing on each side of the 
''gates," and three nobles only would be left untaken. But here 
each one must pass through the portals alone, as well as we all, 
one day or other, have to pass through a gate more terrible. 
Then would there be a tightening and a girding up of the coat 
about the loins, girdles would be strapped around, and the run- 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 405 

ner would be made as slippeiy as an eel. Finally, but one chief- 
tain holds his own, his comrades are all captured, and trans- 
formed into traitorous capturing elephants. He seldom has 
more than one triumphant rush; in the second, he will career 
along, with fury in his eye, with hand uplifted to slay, but his 
force will be by this time abated with continual hammering of 
the common soldiery, and a brother chief will spring forward, and 
hold him like a vice, until we count the mystic number; and then 
the battle is over, and the little ones have rest until the rising of 
another sun. 

This game of '• Gates '' was a kind of antithesis to the glorious 
fight at Thermopylae, for with us the interest of the game was 
keenest when the occupants of the pass were multitudinous as 
the Persians, and the assailants were few and wearied, like the 
gallant and the deathless men that fell asleep upon a long ago 
summer's eve, obedient to the laws of their own Lacedsemon. 

At Christmas tide, one evening was set aside for feasting; but 
the feast was preceded, instead of being logically and Lapithai- 
cally*^* followed, by a pitched battle. Each ward of fifty would be 
divided into two bands, either sailors and soldiers, or pirates 
and sailors ; the former side in each division being the favorite 
one of the select few. We had all to practice for weeks previous- 
ly; our coats would be tucked up tight to the waist, displaying 
our knee breeches and our laughable yellow legs ; the breast of 
our coat or gown would be thrown open to display a paper- 
painted mimic shirt, with blue or red stripes ; the soldier would 
wear a gorgeous pasteboard helmet; the sailor and pirate would 
have respectively his blue and red worsted nightcap; every 
man would have his wooden sword and shield ; but the sol- 
diers' device might be a griffin or a red cross, while that of the 
pirates, wdio were always the favorites, was invariably a skull 
and a pair of cross-bones. 

Sometimes, upon a dark wintry evening, when the separate 
bands were marching and countermarching in the grounds and 
through the cloisters, singing hymns, military, naval and piratic- 
ally-diabolic; when the beadles were on the alert in every quad- 



406 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

rangle to prevent a melee; the pirates of one war<l would unite 
with those of another, and another, and another; gradually the 
soldiers and sailors of all countries would be marching side by 
side, and the school of a thousand lads would be divided into a 
Spartan cluster of pirates and a Median host of horse marines. 
Again and again would they pass each other by, singing loudly 
their varied Pa-ans; until at length, what with the measured 
tramp of many feet, the measured cadence of their hymns, the 
favoring darkness, and the fun of outwitting the beadles and 
the upper authorities, the blood of the boys would be up, and a 
rush would be made from the two ends of the great playground ; 
and in the center, for the space of fifteen minutes, there would 
be charging, and slashing, and hammering on head and shoul- 
der and shield and coward back, as in the olden days before and 
round windy Ilium. And we left our wounded on the field; for 
alas ! I have seen, again and again, the beadles carry off unfor- 
tunates senseless to tlie infirmary. On more than one occasion 
1 managed, by some accident, to pierce right through the en- 
emy's lines to the very outer verge of the battlefield. Whenever 
this good luck befell me, thinking it would be sinful to tempt 
Providence,! invariably ran away. 

The child is father of the man. In the times of the Crimean 
war, when every man was at heart a soldier, I dreamt on three 
several nights that I was engaged with the Russians. I regret 
to state that my provokmg dreams led me in every one instance 
to turn tail. My mortification was always very great on awak- 
ing, for I had to regret the lost opportunity of cheaply pur- 
chasing a good amount of future self-esteem. I think a good 
many of those gentlemen who came home upon family business 
must have been troubled with similar dreams. Some of them, I 
believe, were seen dreaming on the very battlefield by wide- 
awake and steady-nerved comrades. 

To render my school days complete, a great rebellion broke 
out on the occasion of a half holiday being refused to us on some 
saint's day after we had attended morning service in church. At 
grace before dinner, the choristers "tuned up" but no response 



UARCY WENTWORTII THOMPSON. 407 

was given. Nobody would sing, pray, or say Amen. During 
mealtime derisive laughter flew reechoing from table to table, 
the monitors were nonplussed, and the superintendent seemed at 
his wit's end. After dinner we paraded the grounds with ban- 
ners inscribed with scurrilous puns on the names of the leading 
authorities; we stormed the gates one after the other; but, 
when at length we had succeeded in bursting one open, not a boy 
was found bold enough to issue forth. I must say that there 
was a mob outside too thick for us to penetrate ; and in the mob 
were policemen ready to arrest any runaways. Until formally 
called on to stop the mutiny, our head -master, not to interfere 
in matters secular, ignored the whole matter. The moment, 
however, his aid was demanded, he rushed out of doors into the 
middle of the mutineers, and cried in shrill tones that rang far 
and near: ''Boys, if you don't go this instant into school, I'll 
flog a dozen of you." The cry of Achilles on the field after the 
death of Patroclus was not more instantaneous in effect than the 
sound of a certain monosyllable towards the close of this sen- 
tence. A panic ran through the whole host, and we made in 
tumult for the several school doors. When we were all seated in 
our places, the head-master, with all the beadles in attendance, 
went round from room to room and form to form. One very 
knowing beadle had mingled with the noisy crowd, pretending 
great enjoyment of the fun ; but unobservedly he had put a little 
chalk mark on the coats of the most obstreperous; and the 
owner of qyqyj coat so chalked was now singled out for execu- 
tion. Our head-master had threatened to flog a dozen of us if 
we did not go to school. We went to school, and he flogged 
soundly, and deservedly, three dozen of us. Not long afterwards 
the father of a victim called at the grammar-school door, and, 
not knowing what he did, sent in his card to the redoubtable 
head-master. The latter came out and was informed by the 
visitor that his boy, who was beside him, had written home a 
very distressing letter, complaining bitterly of harsh discipline, 
scanty holidays, press of work, and a score of other grievances. 
*'Poor boy,*' said the doctor, "let me have a private talk with 



408 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

him ; I think my reasonings will have a soothing effect upon his 
mind." The credulous father sent the boy in with his tranquil- 
lizer; about ten minutes afterwards the son was pushed out at 
the grammar-school door, sobbing convulsively, and entirely 
convinced of his errors by the doctor's unanswerable logic. The 
measures taken were doubtless stern ; but a mutiny of a thou- 
sand lads is anything but a joke, and our doctor thought that, 
as with the bees of Virgil, so with the bee-clad children of St. 
Edward's, 

Hi motus animorum atque haec certamiiia tantum 
Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescent ;.'''^ 

which couplet interpreted declares that a rebellion can only be 
put down by the dusting of a few jackets. 

Since leaving sciiool I have never— in church, kirk, or chapel- 
heard readers to compare with our Hellenists. Our dining hall 
was, with the exception of Westminster hall, the largest room in 
Great Britain unsupported by pillars. All our meals were pre- 
ceded by a regular service, and that before the supper on a Sun- 
day was a church service in itself. It was on an evening in the 
early autumn, when only the two lights in the pulpit were lit, 
that it fell to the lot of a pale-faced, organ-voiced youth — now a 
man of fame, high place and affluence— to read the fifteenth 
chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Several verses 
had been read without any unusual effect being produced. There 
was as yet the usual accompaniment of shuffling feet, coughs, 
blowing of noses, and the various and indescribable movements 
that cause vibration in the air, and militate against distinct 
hearing. Gradually the noises died away into silence, and the 
silence deepened until it became intense, like a something of itself 
to he heard; the reader warmed and warmed with every verse; 
upon his pale and intellectually beautiful face, clearly visible be- 
tween the two far-away lamps, the eyes of nearly a thousand 
listeners were fixed, and a sublime shudder passed over the whole 
assembly, as, in tones rich, clear and resonant, the solemn words 
were read : " death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy 
victory? " I have since heard the chapter read on infinitely more 



D'ARCY WEXTWORTH THOMPSON. 409 

momentous occasions; but the solemn words have then sounded 
to rae as idle words, and I have heeded them not, because at 
these latter times of hearing their full and comforting: significance 
has been very hard to understand, 

I was about nine years of age when I entered, with luggage as 
aforesaid, the metropolitan school. For five or six years I was 
on the Under Form ; but in this long interval the contents of my 
carpetbag underwent little variation. Some arithmetic and 
penmanship I certainly did pick up and stow aw^ay,but the result 
was a beggarly one for the time expended. I have an indistinct 
remembrance of months and seasons and years of Phipdrus, 
Cornelius Nepos, Ovid and Xenophon. I never knew any boy 
expiseate the meaning so far from a Latin fable as to point its 
moral ; none of us cared a straw about the subjects of Cornelius' 
biographies, or glanced beyond the intelligible four lines of the 
lesson for the day ; Ovid was regarded only as an inexhaustible 
mine for the composition of nonsense verses, and the only sen- 
tences that were hailed in Xenophon were those, rendered easy by 
constant repetition, wherein the army is said thence to march 
this or that number of parasangs; but whither it marched, and 
whence, or why, not a soul of us cared to know\ Xenophon was 
the special bugbear of the higher classes in the Under Form. It 
was the usual lesson for Monday morning or afternoon. Our 
masters were unusually severe in dealing with the works of this 
accursed and diabolical author. The anticipations of their sever- 
ity lent a superfluous gloom to the observance of our dull and 
wearisome Sabbaths. On one occasion there had occurred a 
word, dromo, in an early part of the Greek lesson, which had been 
interpreted higgledy-piggledy by the master. The closing part 
of the lesson was so miserably blotched that the class were, what 
was technically called, turned down. As they hurried to the 
door to escape the boot of a clerical pursuer, one little urchin 
said, loud enough to be overheard : " Here we go, c/romo, dromo.^' 
In a moment the little wretch was seized by the neck, hauled back 
into the den, and made bitterh' to repent his untimely apprecia- 
tion of fun and humor. 



410 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

In each great sleeping ward there was an average of fifty beds. 
When the midsummer vacation, or sleeping-out, as it was 
termed, was just fifty days off, we commenced, after a singular 
fashion, to imprint the passing dates upon the memories of the 
many and the antipodes of the few. Each evening the boy in 
every ward the number of whose bed gave the date of distance 
was bumped by his companions. Two at a time would take hold 
of each arm, two of each leg, and all eight would raise him with 
a will and bump him down to the chanted words: "So many 
days, so many days, so many days to sleeeping-out." The en- 
ergy of the bumpers became terrible in intensity as the dates de- 
creased, and it was anything but a joke to sleep in one of the 
first nine digits. 

I have already alluded to the gloom and dreariness of our 
Sundays. Even now I shudder at the recollection of them. Not 
that 1 have any fault to find. Quite the contrary. I think that, 
when children are year after 3^ear crammed together in unwhole- 
some multitudes, where any imitation of domesticity is impos- 
sible, in the heart of a great city where a cheerful walk is denied, 
the only feasible process with them, on all occasions, is that of 
tread milling. How otherwise are they to be kept out of mis- 
chief? The practice is understood and carried out at the great 
majorit^^ of boarding schools throughout the country. If req- 
uisite at these latter, a fortiori was it requisite at the great 
metropolitan school of St. Edward's. There is a meaning in 
ever3'thing. Our week-day treadmill was a Latin-and-Greek 
machine, that ground nothing in particular; but, if you missed 
your footing, you ran the change of having your leg broken. 
Our Sunday implement was ingeniously complex. In plain 
words, we rose on Sundays at seven, an hour later than usual. 
the deliciousness of that hour! We breakfasted at eight, and 
had our service of psalms and hymns and prayer; at a quarter 
to eleven we went to church, and were there engaged for a two 
hours. Our bibles were very large, and we had to kneel during a 
considerable part of the service on hard boards, with no rest for 
our arms or heads. The misery of the Litany was beyond all 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 411 

words. It was a very Sahara of tribulation. At the end of it we 
little sinners were miserable enough. On leaving church, we 
went at once to the dining hall, and dinner was preluded with a 
lengthened service of reading, psalmody and prayer; immedi- 
ately after dinner we repaired to our wards, and spent an hour 
in the repetition of catechism and psalms, and in the reading of 
portions of Scripture At the ringing of a bell, we descended to 
the cloisters, formed into ranks, and marched again to church. 
On leaving church, after a short time allowed for walking in the 
playground, we were rung up into the dining hall, and a por- 
tentiously long service heralded-in a cold and scanty meal ; after 
grace we waited until the head-master appeared, who would 
favor our dull and inattentive ears with their third sermon for 
the day. Immediately upon the close of his sermon we left for 
the sleeping wards ; but on reaching them we had still another 
service to go through. 

One of our monitors would read us a chapter from the Bible 
and a regular set of evening prayers; and we appropriately 
closed the Sunday with a singing of the Burial Anthem ! Heaven 
only knows who was the wag that ordained this opportune finale. 
The oddity was that, while our psalmody was, in general, care- 
fully attended to by an organist of the highest ability, the air of 
the Burial Anthem had been handed down by merely oral tradi- 
tion. Each ward had consequently a variation of its owm. That 
of my owm ward was more desultory, fitful, and melancholy than 
the howling of an out-of-door's dog upon a moonlit night. It 
seemed always to chime in with my own Sunday evening feelings 
of blank, cold, hungry, church-wearied, sermon-stunned, Xeuo- 
phon-dreading, forever-and-foreverish despair. I have heard a 
great deal said in my time of the religious education of children 
and boys. I, at all events, have no reason to complain. I had 
as much of religious instruction squandered on m^'^self as, if judi- 
ciously distributed, would have turned a whole regiment of dra- 
goons into missionaries. 

Above, in treating of our great rebellion, I referred to our 
religious services on saints' days. Our school had been founded 



412 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

ou the ruins of an old monastery, and in our costume and in 
many of our habits there was much to remind one of a monastic 
origin. However, what had been taken from ecclesiastics at the 
outset had been, with unquestionable wisdom, placed under the 
patronage of the municipal corporation of Nineveh. According- 
ly, on sacred days, viewed as profane by the crowd, the civic dig- 
nitaries, arrayed in scarlet robes, would attend public worship in 
our church. On*some of these occasions a bishop preached. 
These were days of intense excitement. The beadles and the 
churchwardens seemed profoundly impressed with the solemnity 
of their offices; irradiated with reflected light. The incumbent 
alone seemed to shrink into insignificance, and dwindle down 
from a sun into a moon, and from a round moon into a thin, 
pale crescent. His very voice seemed to have died away within 
him, and he read like the ghost of his ordinary self. As the scar- 
let-robed Aldermen entered the central aisle, the organ struck up 
a triumphant march, a thousand lads rose respectfully to their 
feet, and the procession parted off in mid-aisle into two square 
pews of honor. One felt an almost irresistible British impulse to 
hurrah. But the spectacle of the Aldermen in the pews calmed 
down our enthusiasm into a serious repose. These grave digni- 
taries were not satisfied with a hurried smell into their hats like 
private men, but, with their piety expanded by their public func- 
tions and uniforms, they knelt down, buried their faces, like cler- 
gymen, in their ruffles, and for a long while seemed immersed in 
prayer. During the service, they would rest large books upon 
the backs of the pews, and repeat the answers in loud voices that 
sounded all the louder from the absence of the ordinary congre- 
gation. They seemed to be praying at us boys; making, for ex- 
ample's sake, a magnificent display of first-class Ninevite piety. 
I used to think it was no wonder they were so religious, with silk 
knee-breeches on, white-silk stockings, silver-buckled shoes, scar- 
let robes, and massive prayer books in hand, every letter in 
which was as big as a blue-bottle— not to speak of the luncheon 
they had already taken and the dinner that was awaiting them 
in the school-committee room. 



D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 413 

Whilst I am in church I would fain record the impressions 
made on me by a few memorable discourses. Upon the death of 
the incumbent, the curate preached a funeral sermon. His text 
was: "AVe" — meaning the incumbent and himself — "went up 
ioto the house of God together." This statement amazed me ex- 
ceedingly; for the incumbent had been a non-resident, and had 
never set eyes on the oldest boy amongst us. I inferred, how- 
ever, that incumbent and curate had been in the habit of going 
through the services on week-days, snugly and comfortably by 
themselves. At the close of his discourse, the preacher was so 
overcome with his owneloquenceand the recollection of these reli- 
gious tete-k-tetes that he was unable to lift his head off the cush- 
ion, and two church-wardens had to lead him by the arms down 
the pulpit stairs. It was touching beyond words to tell ! But 
the occasion was nothing for pathos to that on which our friend, 
having failed in his candidature for the incumbency, preached, as 
it were, his own funeral sermon; dug his pulpit grave before our 
very eyes, got into it, and covered himself all over with a mould 
of words. Everybody wept, from great church-wardens and 
beadles down to common laymen and chits like myself. Not 
more universal was the world's sorrow at the death of Balder, '** 
or the sobbing of the feathered creation at the murder of Cock 
Robin. 

For many years our afternoon preacher was a stranger, who 
was an ecclesiastical Paganini, ^^and played or preached upon one 
string. His hearers consisted chiefly of servant-maids and school- 
boys. He appeared to be dreadfully— I sometimes thought, need- 
lessly—alarmed at the prospect of our being all converted to Ro- 
man Catholicism. How he belabored the Pope, to be sure! He 
seemed to stick him up like a straw-stuffed Guy Fawkes" right in 
front of himself in the organ loft, and to bowl at him furiously 
for the hour together. I never heard any one secular man say of 
another secular man such hard things as this clergyman said of 
his great eccleciastical enemy. Some of the words he used would 
have been indelicate out of the pulpit; would have savored mono- 
syllabically of Billingsgate." How thankful I used to feel I had 



414 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE, 

been born in a true Prostestant land, where priestcraft had no 
power, where bigotry was a thing unknown, and where we all 
were at liberty to believe implicitly every single thing our 
clergyman told us! the blessings of enlightenment to my 
countrymen ! 

"0 fortiinati nimium, sua si bona norint, Agricola?!"* 

It was not for nothing that our Paganini bowled at the organ 
loft, for he was in course of time raised to a post of considerable 
dignity and emolument through the influence with an evangeli- 
cal Prime Minister of the then omnipotent noble Dean-and-Bish- 
op-maker, who, in all his selections for places of honor, rightly 
preferred elocutionary powers and Protestant zeal to the respect- 
able but earthy recommendations of industry, patience, learning, 
common sense, self-control and practical well-doing. 

In course of time I emerged into the Upper Form. For awhile 
I still pursued my way in darkness, until at length I reached the 
mathematical school, and an Euclid and an Algebra were put 
into my hands; and I had a sensation as though I had been 
walking through long dark alley's in a subterranean coal cellar, 
and that I now through an opening saw the light of day; and I 
seemed to myself to climb up through the opening and stare at 
blue sky above ; but ever and anon I would be called upon to re- 
descend, and rest contented for awhile with partial light. And 
then came my apotheosis in the three years of my Hel- 
lenisty; happy, industrious, and, to a very great extent, useful 
years. Indeed, of these three years I should consider that, at the 
most, only one would be wasted in the pursuit of useless and 
unedifying and impracticable knowledge; whereas, of my first 
six years, as spent in the metropolitan school, the concluding 
six months might, with good teachers and sensible methods, 
have produced as good or as bad a result. And at length the 
time came for my doffing the graceful gown of the Hellenist, 
and going out into the world an ordinary trousered, waist- 



* They are very fortunate husbandmen who appreciate their blessings. 



D'AIiCY WENT WORTH THOMPSON. 415 

coated, behatted mortal. The invisible policeman came nudging 
me with his inexorable baton. 

Naked came I into St. Edward's— literally naked ; for I was 
stripped to the skin, and reclad in my blue regimentals. Naked 
came I in ; and what am I carrying out in my carpet-bag ? Let 
us examine : one very great friendship and some few lesser 
ones; affectionate and grateful recollections of three masters 
and friends ; some mathematics and French stowed away neatly 
and compactly, and a great lot of classics rather confusedly hud- 
dled together; and bless me! in amongst the classics has tum- 
bled a deal of alcaic sawdust, hexametrical cinders, iambic chaff, 
and other intellectual marine stores. Well, never mind ; if these 
latter are of no earthly use in the outer world, they are highly 
valued at the University of Camelot to which 1 am proceeding; 
so we may just as well take care of them for three more years, 
and then we may with safety throw them all away into the eter- 
nal dust bin. 

CHARACTERIZE^ TIOX. 

Professor D'Arcy Thompson has several first-ratequahficationsforthe 
work which he has undertaken. He knows the nature of boys, and is in 
full sympathy with them. He also knows Latin thoroughly, thinks in 
it, and writes it with great elegance. He has also thought with original 
power on the philosophy of language, is always in search of explana- 
tions, and is eager to bring everything out of the realms of unreason. 
All these qualities make themselves visible in the book before us. At the 
same time, great moderation is shown in hazarding explanations or dis- 
missing irrational rules. "English Journal of Education." 



ROBERT SOUTHEY, POET LAUREATE. 

1774-1843. 

Robert Southey, like many of England's noted authors, was of 
humble parentage. He was born at Bristol, England, Aug. 12, 1774. 
His early life was spent in charge of a sister of his mother's. He seems 
to have been unfortunate in his school relations, finding it difficult to 
continue any length of time at any one, being finally expelled from 
Westminster for characterizing his teacher in an essay, printed in a 
school paper. The influence of this screed followed him to Oxford where 
his aunt sent him, though Baliol finally admitted him within her doors. 
As in his school life, he received little from his college instruction, and left 
early to travel, on the suggestion of an uncle. Returning after a time, 
he entered upon a life of literature, disgusted with his investigation of 
the professions. He early made the acquaintance of Coleridge, whose 
wife's sister he married, in 1795. In 1803 he settled at Greta Hall near 
Keswick, where he lived for forty years— most prolific years, for 
Southey's work in literature was enormous — his poetical works number- 
ing ten volumes, and his prose nearly forty, besides leaving unfinished 
at his death nearly as much more. He was made Poet Laureate in 1813. 
The loss of his eldest son, Herbert, in 1809, and his first wife in 1834, 
were sorrows that embittered his life, though naturally of a buoyant 
spirit. His last four years were years of living death, his brain becom- 
inc»- affected shortly after his second marriage. He died March 21, 

1843. 

Wordsworth w^rote the following inscription to his memory, which was 
placed in the church of Crosthwaite, near Keswick: 

"Sacred to the memory of Robert Southey, whose mortal remains 
are interred in the neighboring churchyard. He was born at Bristol, 
August 12, 1774, and died, after a residence of nearly 40 years at Greta 
Hall, in this parish, March 21, 1843. 

Ye torrents foaming down the rocky steeps, 
Ye lakes wherein the Spirit of Waterisleeps, 
Ye vales and hills, whose beauty hither drew 
The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you 
His eyes have closed; and ye, loved books, no more 
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore, 
(416) 



ROBERT SOUTHEY, POET LA UREA TE. 417 

To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown, 

Adding immortal labors of his own ; 

Whether he traced historic truth with zeal 

For the state's guidance, or the church's weal ; 

Or fancy, disciplined by studious art, 

Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart, 

Or judgments sanctioned in the patriot's mind 

By reverence for the rights of all mankind. 

Large were his aims, yet in no human breast 

Could private feelings find a holier nest. 

His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud 

From Skiddaw's top ; but he to Heaven was vowed 

Through a long life, and calmed, by Christian faith, 

In his pure soul the fear of change and death." 



The Schoolmaster of Ingleton. 

(From " The Doctor," by Robert Southey.) 

Daoiel, the son of Daniel Dove and of Dinah his wife, was born 
near Ingleton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on Monday, the 
twenty-second of April, old style, 1723, nine minutes and three 
seconds after three in the afternoon; on which day Marriage 
came in and Mercury was with the Moon; and the aspects were 
D 3 9'^ ^ week earlier, it would have been a most glorious 
trine of the sun and Jupiter; circumstances which were all duly 
noted in the blank leaf of the family Bible. 

Daniel, the father, was one of the race of men who unhappily 
are now almost extinct. He lived upon an estate of six-and- 
twenty acres, which his father had possessed before him, all 
Doves and Daniels, in uninterrupted succession from time imme- 
morial, farther than registers or title deeds could ascend. The lit- 
tle church called Chapel le Dale stands about a bowshot from the 
family house. There they had all been carried to the font; there 
they had each led his bride to the altar; and thither they had, 
each in his turn, been borne upon the shoulders of their friends 
and neighbors. Earth to earth they had been consigned there 
for so many generations, that half of the soil of the churchyard 

2 T. L— 27 



418 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

consisted of their remains, A hermit who might wish his grave 
to be as quiet as his cell, could imagine no fitter resting place. On 
three sides there was an irregular low stone wall, rather to mark 
the limits of the sacred ground than to inclose it; on the fourth 
it was bounded by the brook whose waters proceed by a subter- 
raneous channel from Wethercotecave. Two or three alders and 
rowan trees hung over the brook and shed their leaves and seeds 
into the stream. Some bushy hazels grew at intervals along the 
lines of the wall ; and a few ash trees, as the wind had sown them. 
To the east and west some fields adjoined it, in that state of half 
cultivation which gives a human character to solitude ; to the 
south on the other side, the brook, the common with its lime- 
stone rocks peering everywhere above ground, extended to the 
foot of Ingleborough. A craggy hill, feathered with birch, shel- 
tered it from the north. 

The turf was as fine and soft as that of the adjoining hills; it 
was seldom broken, so scanty was the population to which it was 
appropriated ; scarcely a thistle or a nettle deformed it, and the 
few tombstones which had been placed there were now themselves 
half buried. The sheep came over the wall when they listed, and 
sometimes took shelter in the porch from the storm. Their 
voices, and the cry of the kite wheeling above, were the only 
sounds which were heard there, except when the single bell, which 
hung in its niche over the entrance, tinkled for service on the Sab- 
bath day, or with a slower tongue gave notice that one of the 
children of the soil was returning to the earth from which he 
sprung. 

The house of the Doves was to the east of the church, under 
the same hill, and with the same brook in front; and the inter- 
vening fields belonged to the family. It was a low house, having 
before it a little garden of that size and character which showed 
that the inhabitants could afford to bestow a thought upon 
something more than bodily wants. You entered between two 
yew trees clipped to the fashion of two pawns. There were holly- 
hocks and sunflowers displaying themselves above the wall; roses 
and sweet peas underthe windows, and the everlasting pea climb- 



ROBERT SOUTIIEY, POET LA UREA TE. 419 

ing- the porch. The rest of the garden lay behind the liouse, partly 
on the slope of the hill. It had a hedge of gooseberry bushes, a 
few apple trees, pot herbs in abundance, onions, cabbages, tur- 
nips and carrots; potatoes had hardly yet found their way into 
these remote parts ; and in a sheltered spot under the crag, open 
to the south, were six beehives, which made the family perfectly 
independent of West India produce. Tea was in those days as 
little known as potatoes, and for all other things honey supplied 
the place of sugar. 

The house consisted of seven rooms, the dairy and cellar in- 
cluded, which were both upon the ground floor. As you entered 
the kitchen there was on the right one of those open chimneys 
which afford more comfort in a winter's evening than the finest 
register stove; in front of the chimney stood a wooden beehive 
chair, and on each side was along oak seat with aback to it, the 
seats serving as chests in which the oaten bread was kept. They 
were of the darkest brown, and well polished by constant use. 
On the back of each were the same initials as those over the door, 
with the date 1610. The great oak table, and the chest in the 
best kitchen which held the house linen, bore the same date. The 
chimney was well hung with bacon ; the rack which covered half 
the ceiling bore equal marks of plenty; mutton hams were 
suspended from other parts of the ceiling, and there was an odor 
of cheese from the adjoining dairy, which the turf fire, though 
perpetual as that of the magi or of the vestal virgins, did not 
overpower. A few pewter dishes were ranged above the trenchers, 
opposite the door on a conspicuous shelf. The other treasures 
of the familj^ were in an open triangular cupboard, fixed in one of 
the corners of the best kitchen, halfway from the floor, and 
touching the ceiling. They consisted of a silver saucepan, a silver 
goblet, and four apostle spoons. Here also King Charles' 
Golden Rules were pasted against the wall, and a large print of 
Daniel in the Lions' Den. The lions were bedaubed with yellow, 
and the prophet was bedaubed with blue, with a red patch upon 
each of his cheeks ; if he had been like his picture he might have 
frightened the lions; but happily there were no "judges" in the 



420 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

family, and it had been bought for its name's sake. The other 
print which ornamented the room had been purchased from a 
like feeling, though the cause was not so immediately apparent. 
It represented a ship in full sail, with Joseph and the Virgin 
Mary and the infant on board, and a dove flying behind as if to 
fill the sails with the motion of its wings. Six black chairs were 
ranged along the wall, where they were seldom disturbed from 
their array. They had been purchased by Daniel , the grandfather^ 
upon his marriage, and were the most costly purchase that had 
ever been made in the family, for the goblet w^as a legacy. The 
backs were higher than the head of the tallest man when seated; the 
seats flat and shallow, set ina round frame, unaccommodatingin 
their material, more unaccommodating in shape; the backs also 
were of wood rising straight up, and ornamented with balls, and 
lozenges, and embossment; and the legs and crossbars were 
adorned in the same taste. Over the chimney were two peacock's 
feathers, someof the dry silky pods of the honesty flower, and one 
of those large ' *■ sinuous shells ' ' so finely thus described by Landor : 

Of pearly hue 
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed 
In the sun's palace porch ; where, when unyoked, 
His chariot wheel stands midway in the wave. 
Shake one, and it awakens; then apply 
Its polished lips to your attentive ear, 
And it remembers its august abodes, 
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. 

There was also a head of Indian corn there, and aback scratch- 
er, of which the hand was ivory and the handle black. This 
had been a present of Daniel, the grandfather, to his wife. The 
three apartments above served equally for store rooms and 
bedchambers. William Dove, the brother, slept in one, and Aga- 
tha the maid, or Haggy, as she was called, in another. 

Happy for Daniel, he lived before the age of magazines, re- 
views, cyclopedias, elegant extracts, and literary newspapers, so 
that he gathered the fruit of knowledge for himself, instead of 
receiving it from the dirty fingers of a retail vender. His books 



ROBERT SOUTHEY, POET LAUREATE. 421 

were few in number, but they were all weighty, either in matter 
or in size. They consisted of the " Morte d'Arthur" in the fine 
black-letter edition of Copland ; " Plutarch's Morals "'and" Pliny's 
Natural History," two goodly folios, full as an egg of meat, and 
both translated by that old worthy Philemon,'^ who, for the 
service which he rendered to his contemporaries and to his 
countrymen, deserves to be called the best of the Hollands, with- 
out disparaging either the lord or the doctor in that appel- 
lation. The whole works of Joshua Sylvester (whose name, let 
me tell thee, reader, in passing, was accented upon the first syl- 
lable by his contemporaries, not as now upon the second); ''Jean 
Pettit's History of the Netherlands,'' translated and continued 
by Edward Grimeston, another worthy of the Philemon order; 
" Sir KenelmDigby's Discourses; " " Stowe's Chronicle; ""Joshua 
Barnes' Life of Edward the III;" " Ripley Revived," by Eirenaeus 
Philalethes and an Englishman styling himself " Citizen of the 
World," with its mysterious frontispiece representing the Domus 
Naturse^^ to which nildeest nisi clavis, the " Pilgrim's Progress;" 
two volumes of Ozell's translation of the "Rabelais;" "Latimer's 
Sermons, "and the last volume of "Fox's Martyrs," which latter 
book had been bought him by his wife. The " Pilgrim's Progress" 
was a godmother's present to his son; the odd volume of "Rabe- 
lais "he had picked up at Kendal, at a sale, in a lot with "Ripley 
Revived "and " Plutarch's Morals; " the others he had inherited. 
Daniel had looked into all these books, read most of them, 
and believed all that he read, except Rabelais, which he could 
not tell what to make of. He was not, how^ever, one of those 
persons who complacently suppose everything to be nonsense 
which they do not perfectly comprehend, or flatter themselves 
that they do. His simple heart judged of books by what they 
ought to be, little knowing what they are. It never occurred to 
him that anything would be printed which was not worth print- 
ing, anything which did not convey either reasonable delight or 
useful instruction; and he was no more disposed to doubt the 
truth of what he read, than to question the veracity of his neigh- 
bor, or anyone who had no interest in deceiving him. A book 



422 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

carried with it to him authority in its very aspect. The '' Morte 
d'Arthur," therefore, he received for authentic history, just as he 
did the painful chronicle of honest John Stowe, and the Barnes- 
ian labors of Joshua, the self-satisfied ; there was nothing in it, 
indeed, which stirred his English blood like the battles of Cressy, ^^ 
and Poictiers^' and Najara ; ^^ yet, on the whole, he preferred it to 
Barnes" story, believed in Sir Tor, Sir Tristram, Sir Lancelot, 
and Sir Lamorack as entirely as in Sir John Chandos, the Captal 
de Buche, and the Black Prince, and liked them better. 

Latimer and Du Bartas he used sometimes to read aloud on 
Sundays; and if the departed take cognizance of what passes on 
earth, and poets derive any satisfaction from that posthumous 
applause which is generally the only reward of those who deserve 
it, Sylvester might have found some compensation for the unde- 
served neglect into which his works had sunk, by the full and de- 
vout delight which his rattling rhymes and quaint collocations 
afforded to this reader. The silver-tongued Sylvester, however, 
was reserved for a Sabbath book; as a weekday author Daniel 
preferred Pliny, for the same reason that bread and cheese, or a 
rasher of hung mutton, contented his palate better than a sylla- 
bub. He frequently regretted that so knowing a writer had 
never seen or heard of Wethercote and Yordas caves, the ebbing 
and flowing spring at Giggleswick, Malham Cove, and Gordale 
Scar, that he might have described them among the wonders of the 
world. Omne ignotum pro magnifico^^ is a maxim which will not 
in all cases hold good. There are things which we do not under- 
value because we are familiar with them, but which are admired 
the more, the more thoroughly they are known and understood; 
it is thus with the grand objects of nature and the finest works 
of art — with whatsoever is truly great and excellent. Daniel wa& 
not deficient in imagination; but no description of places which 
he had never seen, however exaggerated (as such things always 
are), impressed him so strongly as these objects in his own neigh- 
borhood, which he had known from childhood. Three or four 
times in his life it happened that strangers, with a curiosity as 
uncommon in that age as it is general in this, came from afar to 



ROBER T SO UTIIE Y, POE T LA UREA TE. 423 

visit these wonders of the West Riding, and Daniel accompanied 
them with a delight such as he never experienced on any other 
occasion. 

But the author in whom he delighted most was Plutarch, of 
whose works he was lucky enough to possess the worthier half; 
if the other had perished, Plutarch would not have been a popu- 
lar writer, but he would have held a higher place in the estima- 
tion of the judicious. Daniel could have posed a candidate for 
university honors, and perhaps the examiner too, with some of 
the odd learning which he had stored up in his memory from 
these great repositories of ancient knowledge. Refusing all re- 
ward for such services, the strangers to whom he otheiated as a 
guide, though they perceived that he was an extraordinary per- 
son, were little aware how much information he had acquired, 
and of how strange a kind. His talk with them did not go be- 
yond the subjects which the scenes they came to visit naturally 
suggested, and they wondered more at the questions he asked 
than at anything which he advanced himself; for his disposition 
was naturally shj^, and that which had been bashfulness in youth 
assumed the appearance of reserve as he advanced in life; for 
having none to communicate with upon his favorite studies, he 
lived in an intellectual world of his own, a mental solitude as 
complete as that of Alexander Selkirk or Robinson Crusoe. Even 
to the curate, his conversation, if he had touched upon his books, 
would have been heathen Greek; and to speak the truth 
plainly, without knowing a letter of that language, he knew more 
about the Greeks than nine-tenths of the clergy at that time, in- 
cluding all the dissenters, and than nine-tenths of the schoolmas- 
ters also. 

Our good Daniel had none of that confidence which so usually 
and so unpleasantly characterizes self-taught men. In fact, he 
was by no means aware of the extent of his acquirements, all 
that he knew in this kind having been acquired for amusement, 
not for use. He had never attempted to teach himself anything. 
These books had lain in his way in bo3'hood, or fallen in it after- 
ward; and the perusal of them, intently as it was followed, was 



424 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

always accounted by him to be nothiiiii: more than recreation. 
None of his daily business had ever been neglected for it; he culti- 
vated his fields and his garden, repaired his walls, looked to the 
stable, tended his cows, and salved his sheep, as diligently and 
as contentedly as if he had possessed neither capacity nor inclina- 
tion for any higher employments. Yet Daniel was one of those 
men who, if disposition and aptitude were not overruled by cir- 
cumstances, w^ould have grown pale with study, instead of being 
bronzed and hardened by sun, and wind, and rain. There were in 
him undeveloped talents which might have raised him to dis- 
tinction as an antiquary, a virtuoso of the Royal Society, a 
poet, or a theologian, to whichever course the bias in his ball 
of fortune had inclined. But he had not a particle of envy in 
his composition. Rethought, indeed, that if he had had gram- 
mar learning in his youth like the curate, he would have made 
more use of it ; but there was nothing either of the sourness or 
bitterness (call it what you please) of repining in this natural 
reflection. 

Never, indeed, was any man more contented with doing his 
duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. 
And well he might be so, for no man ever passed through the 
world with less to disquiet or to sour him. Bred up in habits 
which secured the continuance of that humble but sure independ- 
ence in which he w^as born, he had never known what it was to be 
anxious for the future. At the age of twenty-five he had brought 
home a wife, the daughter of a little landholder like himself, with 
fifteen pounds for her portion, and the true love of his youth 
proved to him a faithful helpmate in those years when the dream 
of life is over, and we live in its realities. Their only child was 
healthy, apt, and docile, to all appearances as happily disposed 
in mind and body as a father's heart could wish. If they had 
fine weather for winning their hay or shearing their corn, they 
thanked God for it; if the season proved unfavorable the labor 
was only a little the more, and the crop a little the worse. Their 
stations secured them from want, and they had no wish beyond 
it. What more had Daniel to desire. 



ROBERT SO UTHE F, POE T LA UREA TE. 425 

Having nothing to desire for himself, Daniel's ambition had 
taken a natural direction and fixed upon his son. He was re- 
solved that the boy should be made a scholar; not with the pros- 
pect of advancing him in the world , but in the hope that he 
might become a philosopher, and take as much delight in the 
books which he would inherit as his father had done before. 
Riches, and rank, and power appeared in his judgment to be 
nothing when compared to philosophy; and herein he was as 
true a philosopher as if he had studied in the Porch, or walked the 
groves of Academus. ^'' 

******* 

[A little before young Daniel was capable of more instruction 
than could be given him at home, there came a schoolmaster in 
declining life to settle at Ingleton.] 

* * *•* * * * 

Richard Guy was his name; he is the person to whom the 
lovers of old rhyme are indebted for the preservation of the old 
poem of Flodden Field, ^'^ which he transcribed from an ancient 
manuscript, and which was printed from his transcript by 
Thomas Gent of York. In this way through the world, which 
had not been along the King's high Dunstable road, Guy had 
picked up a competent share of Latin, a little Greek, some prac- 
tical knowledge of physics, and more of its theory, astrology 
enough to casta nativity, and more acquaintance with alchemy 
than has often been possessed by one who never burnt his fingers 
in its processes. These acquirements* were grafted on a disposi- 
tion a8 obliging as it was easy; and he was beholden to nature 
for an understanding so clear and quick that it might have 
raised him to some distinction in the world, if he had not been 
under the influence of an imagination at once lively and cred- 
ulous. Five-and-fifty years had taught him none of the world's 
wisdom; they had sobered his mind without maturing it; but he 
had a wise heart, and the wisdom of the heart is worth all other 
wisdom. 

Daniel was too far advanced in life to fall in friendship ; he felt 
a certain degree of attractiveness in this person's company; 



426 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

there was, however, so much of what may better be called reti- 
cence than reserve in his own quiet habitual manners, that it 
would have been long before their acquaintance ripened into any- 
thing like intimacy, if an accidental circumstance had not 
brought out the latent sympathy which on both sides had, till 
then, rather been apprehended than understood. They w^ere 
walking together one day when young Daniel, who was then in 
his sixth year, looking up in his father's face, proposed this ques- 
tion: ''Will it be any harm father, if I steal five beans when 
next I go into Jonathan Dowthwaites, if I can do it without any- 
one's seeing me? " 

"And what wouldst thou steal beans for?" was the reply, 
"when anybody would give them to thee, and when thou knowest 
there are plenty at home? " 

" But it won't do to have them given, father," the boy replied ► 
"They are to charm away my warts. Uncle William says I must 
steal five beans, a bean for every wart, and tie them carefully up 
in paper, and carry them to a place where two roads cross, and 
then drop them, and walk away without ever once looking be- 
hind me. And then the warts will go away from me, and come 
upon the hands of the person that picks up the beans." 

" Nay, boy," the father made answer; " that charm was never 
taught by a white witch I If thy warts are a trouble to thee, they 
would be a trouble to anyone else ; and to get rid of an evil from 
ourselves, Daniel, by bringing it upon another, is against our duty 
to our neighbor. Have nothing to do with a charm like that ! " 

"May I steal a piece of raw beef then," rejoined the boy, "and 
rub the warts with it and bury it? For Uncle says that will do, 
and as the beef rots, so the warts will waste away." 

"Daniel," said the father, "those can be no lawful charms 
that begin with stealing; I could tell thee how to cure thy warts 
in a better manner. There is an infallible way, which is by washing 
the hands in moonshine, but then the moonshine must be caught 
in a bright silver basin. You wash and wash in the basin, and a 
cold moisture will be felt upon the hands, proceeding from the 
cold and moist ravs of the moon." 



ROBER T SO UTHE Y, FOE T LA UREA TE. 427 

"But what shall we do for a silver basin?" said little 
Daniel. 

The father answered, "A pewter dish might be tried, if it were 
made very bright ; but it is not deep enough. The brass kettle^ 
perhaps, might do better." 

'' Nay," said Guy, who had now begun to attend with some in- 
terest, *<the shape of a kettle is not suitable. It should be a 
concave vessel, so as to concentrate the rays. Joshua Wilson, I 
dare say, would lend his brass basin, which he can very well spare 
at the hour you want it, because nobody comes to be shaved by 
moonlight. The moon rises early enough to serve at this time. 
If you come in this evening at six o'clock, I will speak to Joshua 
in the meantime, and have the basin as bright and shining as a 
good scouring can make it. The experiment is curious, and I 
should like to see it tried. Where, Daniel, didst thou learn it?" 
" I read it," replied Daniel, in " Sir Kenelm Digby's Discourses^ 
and he says it never fails." 

Accordingly the parties met at the appointed hour. Mam- 
brino's helmet '^^ when new from the armorers, or when furbished 
for a tournament, was not brighter than Guy had rendered the 
inside of the barber's basin. Schoolmaster, father and son re- 
tired to a place out of observation, by the side of the river, a 
wild stream tumbling among the huge stones which it had 
brought down from the hills. On one of these stones sat Daniel, 
the elder, holding the basin in such an inclination towards the 
moon that there should be no shadow in it; Guy directed the 
boy where to place himself so as not to intercept the light, and 
stood looking complacently on, while young Daniel revolved his 
hands one in another within the empty basin, as if wasliing 
them. " I feel them cold and clammy, father," said the boy. (It 
was the beginning of November.) ''Ay," replied the father, 
"that's the cold moisture of the moon." "Ay," echoed the 
schoolmaster, and nodded his head in confirmation. 

The operation was repeated on the two following nights, and 
Dani( 1 would have kept up his son two hours later than his reg- 
ular time of rest to continue it on the third, if the evening had 



428 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

not set in with clouds and rain. In spite of the patient's behef 
that the warts wouhl waste away, and were wasting (for Prince 
Hohenlohe^'^ could not require more entire faith than was given 
on this occasion), no alteration could be perceived in them at 
a fortnight's end. Daniel thought the experiment had failed 
because it liad not been repeated sufficiently often, and, perhaps, 
continued long enough. Buttheschoolmaster wasof o[)inionthat 
the cause of failure was in the basin; for that silver being the 
lunar metal would, by affinity, assist the influential virtues of the 
moonlight, which , finding no such affinity in a mixed metal of baser 
compounds, might, contrariwise, have its potential qualities weak- 
ened, or even destroyed, when received in a brazen vessel, and re- 
fleeted from it. Flossofer Daniel assented to this theory. Never- 
theless, as the child got rid of his troublesome excrescences in the 
course of a few months, ail parties disregarded the lapse of time 
at first, and afterwards fairly forgetting it, agreed that the rem- 
edy had been effectual, and Sir Kenelm, if he had been living, 
might have procured the solemn attestation of men more vera- 
cious than himself that moonshine was an infallible cure for warts. 
******* 

"Though happily thou wilt say that wands be to be wrought when 
they are green, lest they rather break than bend when they be dry, yet 
know also that he that bendeth a twig because he would see if it would 
bow by strength, may chance to have a crooked tree when he would 
have a straight."— Euphues. 

From this time the two flossofers were friends. Daniel seldom 
went to Ingleton without looking in upon Guy, if it were between 
school hours. Guy on his part would walk as far with him on 
the way back as the tether of his own time allowed, and fre- 
quently on Saturdays and Sundays he strolled out and took a 
seat by Daniers fireside. Even the wearying occupation of hear- 
ing one generation of urchins after another repeat a-b-ab, ham- 
mering the first rules of arithmetic into leaden heads, and pacing 
like a horse in a mill the same dull dragging round, day after 
day, had neither diminished Guy's good nature, nor lessened his 
love for children. He had from the first conceived a liking for 



ROBERT SOUTHEY, POET LA UREATE. 429 

young Daniel, both because of the right principle which was 
evidenced by the manner in which he proposed the question con- 
cerning stealing the beans, and of the profound gravity (worthy 
of a flossofer's son) with which he behaved in the affair of the 
moonshine. All that he saw and heard of him tended to confirm 
his favorable prepossession; and the boy, who had been taught 
to read in the Bible and in ''Stowe's Chronicle," was committed 
to his tuition at seven years of age. 

Five days in the week (for in the North of England Saturday 
as well as Sunday is a Sabbath to the schoolmaster) did young 
Daniel, after supping his porringer of oatmeal pottage, set off to 
school, with a little basket containing his dinner in his hand. 
This provision usually consisted of oatcake and cheese, the latter 
in goodly proportion, but of the most frugal quality, whatever 
cream the milk afforded having been consigned to the butter tub. 
Sometimes it was a piece of cold bacon or cold pork; and in win- 
ter there was the luxury of a shred pie, which is a coarse north 
country edition of pie abhorred by Puritans. The distance was 
in those days called two miles; but miles of such long measure 
that they were for him a good hour's walk at a cheerful pace. He 
never loitered on the way, being at all times brisk in his move- 
ments, and going to school with a spirit as light as when he re- 
turned from it, like one whose blessed lot it was never to have 
experienced, and therefore never to stand in fear of, severity or 
unkindness. For he was not more a favorite with Guy for his 
docility, and regularity, and diligence, than he was with his 
schoolfellows for his thorough good nature and a certain original 
oddity of humor. 

There are some boys who take as much pleasure in exercising 
their intellectual faculties as others do when putting forth the 
power of arms and legs in boisterous exertion. Young Daniel 
was from his childhood fond of books. William Dove used to say 
he was a chip of the old block ; and this hereditary disposition 
was regarded with much satisfaction by both parents, Dinah 
having no higher ambition nor better wish for her son, than that 
he might prove like his father in all things. This being the bent 



430 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

of his nature, the boy, having a kind master as well as a happy 
home, never tasted of what old Lily*' calls (and well might call) 
the wearisome bitterness of the scholar's learning. He was never 
subject to the brutal discipline of the Udals,"* and Bushbys, and 
Bowyers, and Parrs, and other less notorious tyrants who have 
trodden in their steps; nor was any of that inhuman injustice 
ever exercised upon him to break his spirit, for which it is to be 
hoped Dean Colet^^ has paid iii purgatory ; to be hoped, I say, be- 
cause if there be no purgatory, the dean may have gone farther 
and fared worse. Being the only Latiner in the.school, his lessons 
were heard with more interest and less formality. Guy observed 
his progress with almost as much delight and as much hope as 
Daniel himself. A schoolmaster who likes his vocation feels to- 
ward the boys who deserve his favor something like a thrifty and 
thriving father towards the children for w^hom he is scraping to- 
gether wealth. He is contented that his humble and patient in- 
dustry should produce fruit, not for himself but for them, and 
looks with pride to a result in which it is impossible for him to 
partake, and which in all likelihood he may never live to see. 
Even some of the old phlebotomists have had this feeling to 
redeem them. 

" Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old 
he will not depart from it." Generally speaking, it will be found 
so, but is there any other rule to which there are so many excep- 
tions? 

******* 

To put a boy in the way he should go, is like sending out a 
ship well found, well manned and stored, and with a careful cap- 
tain; but there are rocks and shallows in her course, winds and 
currents to be encountered, and all the contingencies and perils 
of the sea. 

How often has it been seen that sons, not otherwise deficient 
in duty towards their parents, have, in the most momentous con- 
cerns of life, taken the course most opposite to that in which 
they have been trained to go, going wrong where the father 
would have directed them aright, or taking the right path in 



ROBERT SO UTHE Y, POET LA UREA TE. 431 

spite of all inducements and endeavors for leading them 
wrong. 

No such disappointment was destined to befall our Daniel. The 
way in which he trained up his son was that into which the bent 
of the boy's own nature would have led him; and all circum- 
stances combined to favor the tendency of his education. The 
country, abounding in natural objects of sublimity and beauty 
(some of these singular in their kind), might have impressed a 
duller imagination than had fallen to his lot; and that imagina- 
tion had time enough for its workings during his solitary walks 
to and from school morning and evening. His home was in a 
lonely spot, and having neither brother nor sister, nor neighbors 
near enough in any degree to supply their place as playmates, he 
became his father's companion imperceptibly as he ceased to be 
his fondling. And the effect was hardly less apparent in Daniel 
than in the boy. He was no longer the same taciturn person as 
of yore; it seemed as if his tongue had been loosened, and when 
the reservoirs of his knowledge were opened they flowed freely. 

Their chimney corner on a winter's evening presented a group 
not unworthy of Sir Joshua's pencil.^''' There sat Daniel, richer in 
marvelous stories than ever traveler who in the days of mendac- 
ity returned from the East; the peat fire shining upon a counte- 
nance which, weather hardened as it was, might have given the 
painter a model for a patriarch, so rare was the union which it 
exhibited of intelligence, benevolence and simplicity. There sat 
the boy with open eyes and ears, raised head, and fallen lip, in 
all the happiness of wonder and implicit belief. There sat Dinah, 
not less proud of her husband's learning than of the towardly 
disposition and promising talents of her son, twirling the thread 
at her spinning wheel, but attending to all that passed; and 
when there was a pause in the discourse, fetching a deep sigh, and 
exclaiming "Lord bless us! what wonderful things there are in the 
world ! " There also sat Haggy, knitting stockings, and sharing 
in the comforts and enjoyments of the family when the day's work 
was done. And there sat William Dove, (who was born with one 
of those heads in which the thin partition which divides great wits 



432 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

from folly is wanting). Though all was not there, there was a 
great deal. Some of his faculties w-ere more acute than ordinary, 
and his temper had never been soured by ill usage. His memory 
was retentive of all curious proverbial wisdom and traditional 
lore, and had he come into the world a century sooner, he would 
have been taken nolens volens into some baron's household, to 
wear motley, make sport for the guests and domestics, and live 
in fear of the rod. But it was his better fortune to live in an 
age when this calamity rendered him liable to no such oppression, 
and to be precisely in that station which secured for him all the 
enjoyments of which he was capable, and all the care he needed. 
In higher life, he would probably have been consigned to the 
keeping of strangers who would have taken charge of him for 
pay ; in a humbler degree he must have depended upon the parish 
for support, or have been made an inmate of one of those moral 
lazar-houses in which age and infancy, the harlot and the idiot, 
the profligate and the unfortunate, are herded together. 

William Dove escaped these aggravations of calamity. He 
escaped also that persecution to which he would have been ex- 
posed in populous places where boys run loose in packs, and 
harden one another in impudence, mischief and cruelty. Nat- 
ural feeling, when naturalfeeling is not corrupted, leads men to 
regard persons in his condition with a compassion not unmixed 
with awe. It is common with the country people, when they 
speak of such persons, to point significantly at the head and say, 
'' -Tis not all f/iere"— words denoting a sense of the mysterious- 
ness of our nature which perhaps they feel more deeply on this 
than any other occasion. No outward and visible deformity can 
make them so truly apprehend how fearfully and wonderfully we 
are made. 

William Dove's was not a case of fatuity. Though a77 was not 
there, there was a great deal. He was what is called half-saved. 
Some of his faculties were more acute than ordinary, but the 
power of self-conduct was entirely wanting in him. Fortunately 
it was supplied by a sense of entire dependence which produced 
entire docility. A dog does not obey his master more dutifully 



ROBERT SOUTHEY, POET LA UREATE. 433 

than William obeyed his brother; and in this obedience there was 
nothing of fear; with all the strength and simplicity of a child's 
love, it had also the character and merit of a moral attachment. 
Guy never crammed the memory of his pupil with such horrific 
terms as prothesis, aphaeresis, epen thesis, syncope, paragoge,and 
apocope; never questioned him concerning appositio, evocatio, 
syllepsis, prolepsis, zeugma, synthesis, an tiptosis, and synecdoche ; 
never attempted to deter him (as Lily says boys are above all 
things to be deterred) from those faults which Lily also says 
seem almost natural to the English— the heinous faults of iota- 
cism, lambdacism (which Alcibiades" affected), ischnotesism, 
trauli'sm,and plateasm. But having grounded him well in the 
nouns and verbs, and made him understand the concords, he then 
followed in part the excellent advise of Lily thus given in his ad- 
dress to the reader: — 

'' When these concords be well known unto them (an easy and 
pleasant pain, if the foregrounds be well and thoroughly beaten 
in), let them not continue in learning of the rules orderly, as tliey 
lie in their syntax, but rather learn some pretty book, wherein is 
contained not only the eloquence of the tongue, but also a good 
plain lesson of honesty and godliness; and thereof take some 
little sentence as it lieth, and learn to make the same first out of 
English into Latin, not seeing the book, or construing it there- 
upon. And if there fall any necessary rule of syntax to be known, 
then to learn it, as the occasion of the sentence giveth cause that 
day; whicli sentence once made well, and as nigh as may be with 
the words of the book, then to take the book and construe it; 
and so shall he be less troubled with the parsing of it, and easiliest 
carry his lesson in mind." 

Guy followed this advice in part, and in part he deviated from 
it, upon Lily's own authority, as ''judging that the most suffi- 
cient way which he saw to be the readiest mean; " while, there- 
fore, he exercised his pupjl in writing Latin pursuant to this plan, 
he carried him on faster in construing, and promoted the boy's 
progress by gratifying his desire of getting forward. When he 
had done with Cordery,^® Erasmus®^ was taken up; for some of 

2 T. L.— 28 



434 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Erasmus' colloquies were in those days used as a schoolbook, 
and the most attractive one that could be put into a boy's hands. 
After he had got through this, the aid of an English version was 
laid aside. And here Guy departed from the ordinary course, not 
upon any notion that he could improve upon it, but merely be- 
cause he happened to possess an old book composed for the use 
of schools, which was easy enough to suit young DanieFs pro- 
gress in the language, and might, therefore, save the cost of pur- 
chasing Justin, or Phaedrus, or Cornelius Nepos, or Eutropius— 
to one or other of which he would otherwise have been intro- 
duced. 

Now it has sometimes appeared to me, that, in like manner, 
boys might acquire their first knowledge of Latin from authors 
very inferior to those which are now used in all schools; provided 
the matter was unexceptionable and the Latinitygood; and that 
they should not be introduced to the standard works of antiquity 
till they are of an age in some degree to appreciate what they read . 
If the dead have any cognizance of posthumous fame, one 
would think it must abate somewhat of the pleasure with which 
Virgil and Ovid regard their earthly immortality, when they see 
to what base purposes their productions are applied. That their 
verses should be administered to boys in regular doses, as les- 
sons or impositions, and some dim conception of their meaning 
whipped into the tail when it has failed to penetrate the head, 
cannot be just the sort of homage to their genius which they an- 
ticipated or desired. 

Light lie the earth upon the bones of Richard Guy, the school- 
master of Ingleton ! He never consumed birch enough in his 
vocation to have made a besom ; and his ferula was never ap- 
plied unless when some moral offense called for a chastisement 
that would be felt. There is a closer connection between good 
nature and good sense than is commonly supposed. A sour, ill- 
tempered pedagogue would have driven Daniel through the briars 
and brambles of the grammar and foundered him in its sloughs; 
Guy led him gently along the green sward. He felt that childhood 
should not be made altogether a season of painful acquisition, 



ROBERT SOUTHE Y, POET LA UREA TE. 435 

and that the fruits of the sacrifices then made are uncertain as to 
the account to which they may be turned, and are also liable to 
the contingencies of life at least, if not otherwise jeopardized. 
*^ Puisque 1p jour peut lui manrjuer, Liisaons lo un pen jouir de 
PAurore I " (Lest the day should not be his, let him enjoy the 
dawn.) The precept which warmth of imagination inspired in 
Jean Jacques^ was impressed upon Guy's practice by gentle- 
ness of heart. 

The intellectual education which young Daniel received at 
home was as much out of the ordinary course as the book in 
which he studied at school. "Robinson Crusoe" had not yet 
reached Ingleton, "Sandford and Merton " ^^ had not been written, 
nor the history of Pecksey and Flapsey and the '' Robin's Nest," 
which is the prettiest fiction that ever was composed for children, 
and for which its excellent authoress will one day rank high 
among women of genius when time shall have set its seal upon 
desert. The only book within his reach, of all those which now come 
into the hands of youth, was the " Pilgrim's Progress," and this 
he read without a suspicion of its allegorical import. What he did 
not understand was as little remembered as the sounds of the 
wind, or the motions of the passing clouds; but the imagery and 
the incidents took possession of his memory and his heart. 
* * * Oh! what blockheads are those wise persons who think 
it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads ! 

CHARACTERIZATION . 

Few authors have written so much and so well, with so little real pop- 
ularity, as Mr. Southey. Of all his prose works, admirable as they are 
in purity of style, the life of Nelson alone is a general favorite. The 
magnificent creations of his poetry — piled up like clouds at sunset, in 
the calm serenity of his capacious intellect — have always been duly appre- 
ciated by poetical students and critical readers ; but by the public at 
large they are neglected. A late attempt to revive them, by the pub- 
lication of the whole poetical works in ten uniform and cheap volumes, 
has only shown that they are unsuited to the taste of the present gen- 
eration. The reason for this may be found both in the subjects of 
Southey's poetry, and in his manner of treating them. His fictions are 



436 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

wild and supernatural and have no hold on human affections. Gorgeous 
and sublime as some of his images and descriptions are, they "come like 
shadows, so depart." They are too remote, too fanciful, and often too 
learned. The Grecian mythology is graceful and familiar; butSouthey's 
Hindoo superstitious are extravagant and strange. To relish them re- 
quires considerable previous reading and research, and this is a task 
which few will undertake. The dramatic art or power of vivid deline- 
ation is also comparatively unknown to Southey, and hence the dia- 
loguesin " Madoc and Roderick " are generally fiat and uninteresting. His 
observation was of books, not nature. Some affectations of style, and 
expression also, marred the effect of his conception, and the stately and 
copious flow of his versification, unrelieved by bursts of passion or elo- 
quent sentiment, sometimes becomes heavj^ and monotonous in its uni- 
form smoothness and dignity. Chamber's Encyclopedia. 

" The most ambitious and the most voluminous author of his age, 
Southey," says John Dennis, '* was also one of the least popular; and 
time, instead of changing the national verdict, as he anticipated, has ap- 
parently confirmed it. His vast epics, the acorns which he planted when 
his poetical contemporaries, as he said, were sowing kidney beans, are 
not the trees whose majestic proportions win our admiration or to whose 
shade we willingly resort ; his bulky histories of Brazil and the Penin- 
sular War stand upon our shelves unread ; his ' Doctor,' that strange 
jumble of humor and nonsense, of learning and simplicity, of literary 
strength and weakness, is read chiefly by the curious ; his 'Natural His- 
tory of England' is a dead book ; so is the 'Colloquies.' The 'Book 
of the Church' is not dead, but it has never attained popularity ; and 
probably the only works which keep Southey's name before the latest 
generation of readers, are the biographies of John Wesley and Lord 
Nelson. Failure, then, if any trust may be placed in the verdict we have 
recorded, is written upon a large proportion of Southey's works." 



EXPLATsTATOEY I^OTES. 



4. 



Mazzini (Mdt-sc'-ne). An Italian pa- 
triot and revolutionist, born at 
(jleuoa, 1805; died at Pisa, 1872. 
Felix Holt. The title character in a 
novel of the same name by George 
Eliot, 

Pace — peace. 

Sybarite. A dweller of Sybaris, an 
ancient Italian town, whose inhab- 
itants were proverbial for their lux- 
xuy ; whence the epithet Sybarite. 
-5. From Tennyson's " In Memoriam." 
<5. Rimmon, seventh in order of the 
hierarchv of hell : (1) Satan, (2) Beel- 
zebub, (3) Moloch, (4) Chemos, (5) 
Thammuz, (6) Dagon, (7) Rimmon, 
whose chief temple was at Damas- 
cus. (2 Kings v. 18.) 

Him [D(7£-oh] followed Rimmon, whose de- 
lightful seat 
Was fair Damascus on the fertile banks 
Of Abana and Pharphar, lucid streams. 

Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 467, etc. (1665). 

7. Achates (J-A-a'-ffrf), called by Virgil 
'• fidus Achates." The name has be- 
come a synonym for a bosom friend, 
a crony, but is generally used laugh- 
ingly. 

He, like Achates, faithful to the tomb. 

Byron, Don Juan, i. 159. 

Vires acquirit e7(7ido. Strength is ac- 
quired by doing. 

Kata. A Greek preposition having 
an intensive force in composition, 
and meaning down, against. 

Ceteris paribus. Other things being 

equal. 

" Little Foxes." A work written by 

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

Propria quae viaribus — peculiar to 

men. See Standard Dictionary . 

" Day-Dreams of a Schoolmaster," by 

D'Arcy W. Thompson. See The 

Teacher in Literature, page 410 

etseq. 

From " Locksley Hall " by Tennyson. 

Tom Brown. See " Tom Brown at 
Rugby" by Thomas Hughes, in The 
Teacher "in Literature, page 275 
et seq. 



8 



10 



11 



12 



13 



16. Locum tenens. Holding positions 
Nolo episcopari, 7wlo, nolo, I wont be 
a bishop, I wont, I wont. 

17. Pa'nas. Tasks. From the " Georgics," 
a pastoral poem by Virgil. 

18. Rhadamauthine. Rhadaman'thus, 
sou of Jupiter and Euro'pa. He 
reigned in the Cyclades with such 
impartiality, that at death he was 
made one of the judges of the infer- 
nal regions. 

And if departed souls must rise again, . . . 
And bide the judgment of reward or pain; . . . 
Then Rhadamanthus and stern Minos were 
True types of justice while they lived here. 

Lord Brooke, Motiarchie, i. (1554-1628.) 

10. Feliciter is sapit, qui pericnlo alieno 
snpit. He acquires wisdom most 
happily who profits by another's 
mistakes. 

20. Disciplinarians. The author's title is 
Oi touranoi, the Greek word meaning 

tyrants. 

•11. This selection is from "A Book About 

Boys," by the same author. 
•22. Plcctuntur Achivi. The Greeks suffer. 

23. Voild. Look out ! behold ! 

24. Mollah. Title of the highest order 
of judges in the Turkish Empire. 

25. De morihus nil nisi. Speak only good 
of the dead. 

26. Dun'ciad (" the dunce epic ") a satire 
by Alexander Pope— written to re- 
venge himself upon his literary ene- 
mies. 

27. Granta. Ancient name for Cam- 
bridge, the seat of one of England's 
greatest universities. 

28. Cid (The) =Seid or Signior, also 
called Campeador (Cam-pa' -dor) or 
'•Camp hero." Rodrigue Diazde Bi- 
var was surnamed "the Cid." The 
great hero of Castille ; he v/as born at 
Burgos 1030 and died 1099. He signal- 
ized himself by his exploits in the 
reigns of Ferdinand, Sancho II., and 
Alphonso VI. of Leon and Castile. 
In the wars between Sancho II. and 
his brother (Alphonso VI.), he sided 
v/ith the former; and on the assas- 

(437) 



438 



THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 



sination of Sancho, was disgraced, 
and quitted the court. He then as- 
sembled his vassals, and marched 
against the Moors, whom he con- 
quered in several battles, so that 
Alphouso was necessitated to recall 
him. 

29. Hermes Trismegis'tus {'^Hermes 
thrice-greatest"), theEgyptian Thoth, 
to whom it ascribed a host of inven- 
tions: as the art of writing in hiero- 
glyphics, the first Egyptian code of 
laws, the art of harmony, the science 
of astrology, the invention of the 
lute and lyre, magic, etc. (twentieth 
century b. c). 

The school of Hermes Trismegistus, 
Who uttered his oracles sublime 
Before the Olympiads. 

Longfellow, The Go/den Legend (1851). 

30. Arnauld, Antoine. A great French 
theologian and philosopher, born at 
Paris, Feb. 8, 1612; died at Brussels, 
Aug. 8, 1694. 

31. Prospero's Island. See Shakespeare's 
"The Tempest." 

32. Verres, Caius, governor of Sicily, 
which he plundered of property and 
art treasures . Prosecuted by Cicero 
in 70 B.C. 



Alma,— cherishing. 
Dominie Sampson. See selection 
from Sir Walter Scott, page 301 et seq. 
Cleishbotham, Jedediah, imaginary 
editor of " The Tales of My Land- 
lord," by Sir Walter Scott. Reuben 
Butler. See Sir Walter Scott's 
" Heart of Midlothian." 



35 



36 



See The Teacher in Literature, 
page 59 et scq. 

Lancaster, Joseph. English educat- 
or, born at London, 1778; died at New 
York, 1838. Author of the " monito- 
rial system " of instruction, which at 
one time obtained great popularity. 

37. Bell. Andrew, a Scotchman, born in 
1753, and died in 1832, noted as the 
founder of the " Madras system " of 
popular education, in which one 
child taught another under the di- 
rection of a master. 

Fellenberg, Phillipp 'Emanuel von. 
Born at Berne, Switzerland, 1771, 
where he died in 1844. He estab- 
lished agricultural schools. 

" Wallace, The Acts and Deeds of Sir 
William," a poetical chronicle writ- 
ten about the year 1460, by the wan- 
dering minstrel called " Blind Har- 
ry." The book was published in 1869. 

Quarll, Philip, the hero of "The 
Hermit," a curious book, the author- 
ship of which is unknown. It is an 
imitation of " Robinson Crusoe," an 
ape being substituted for the affec- 
tionate Friday. 

" Udolpho, The Mysteries of," a ro- 



38 



39 



40 



41 



mance by Mrs. Radcliff, published 

in 1794. 

42. Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in 
Great Britain. It is situated in 
Inverness-shire, Scotland. 

43. Lyell, Sir Charles. A celebrated ge- 
ologist, born in Scotland in 1797; 
died at London, 1875. 

44. Morgiana, a character in the story of 
"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves " in 
*' The Arabian Nights Entertain- 
ments." 

45. Jean Paul. The pseudonym of Jean 
Paul Friederich Richter, a novelist 
and writer, born in Bavaria in 1763; 
died, 1825. His most celebrated ed- 
ucational work is " Levana." 

46. Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo — 
Apollo sometimes misses the mark. 

47. Varium et 711 u tab He — fickle and 
changeable. 

48. Afrite. An evil spirit or genius in 
Mohammedan mythology;. The 
" History of Caliph Vathek '" is a ro- 
mance by William Beckford, 1759- 
1844. 

49. Conjtiro te (I conjure tYxQe.) , scelestis- 
sima (most accursed) — nequissima 
(most worthless) — spurcissima (most 
foul) iniquissima (most spiteful) — 
atque mlsserima (and most wretched) 
— conjure te (I conjure thee). 
Conjuro, abjuro, Contestor, atque ^ 
viriliteo iniperotibi.—I conjure, ab- 
jure you call you to witness and 
strongly command you meliUca. — 
Nefarious one. Sceleratissima 
(wickedest of all). 

50. Canidia (a sorceress), Erichthoe (a 
Thessalian witch). 

51. Exorciso te (I drive out or exorcise 

you). 

52. Suum caique tributo (Give each one 
his own — Give the devil his due). 

53. Cam and Isis. Cam, the river upon 
which the city of Cambridge is sit- 
uated. Isis, the stream upon which 
the city of Oxford is situated. 

54. Crichtons. James Crichton, called 
"admirable Crichton," a Scotch 
prodigy, who, at 20, could speak 
twelve languages. Born, 1560; killed 
by his pupil, 1582. 

55. Elgin marbles. "A collection of an- 
cient sculptures for the most part 
of the school of Phidias and from 
the Parthenon at Athens, taken to 
England during the first years of the 
19th Century by the Earl of Elgin 
and now preserved in the British 
Museum."— Century Dictionary. 

56. Cimons. Cimon, an Athenian com- 
mander, was the son of Miltiades^ 
the conqueror at Marathon. He 
overcame the Persians by land and 
sea, and spent his fortune in improv- 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. 



439 



Ing Athens. He was the hereditary 
foe of the Persians and died 449 b. c, 
in Cyprus, while besieging Citium, 
a Persian stronghold. 

57. Benefecisti, Jacobus— Jacob, you have 
done well. 

68. Carissime, Jacobus— Be&Test Jacob. 

59. Omnia vitia ingraiitudo in se complec- 
<i7«r— Ingratitude embraces in itself 
all the vices. 

60. Artes adumhratae meruit ceu sedula 
laudem — Mental labor deserves 
praise as well as material employ- 
ments. 

61. Oh puer infelix et sccleratus— Oh un- 
happy and rascally boy. 

62. Ite procul fraudes—B.ence deceivers. 
Cum popiilo et dace fraudulentum — 
False with the people and leader. 

63. Consonat omne uemus strepitu— The 
whole place resounds with the din. 

64. Calcitrat ardescunt germani csede 
bimembres—'H.e kicks,' his legs burn 
with the thrashing. 

65. Phalaris. A ruler of Agrigentum in 
Sicily about 570 B.C. He burned his 
victims in a brazen bull. 

66. Hermse. Images set up as bound- 
ary stones. Also Signposts erected 
at' crossroads to direct messengers 
and travelers. They consisted of 
pillars becoming narrower towards 
the foot and surmounted by a head 
of Hermes. Each traveler in passing 
was required to place a stone be- 
side it. 

67. Timeo Danaos ct dona ferentes — I fear 
the Greeks even when bearing gifts. 

68. Lapithaically. Referring to the at- 
tempt of Eurytion to carry off Hip- 
podameia, the bride of Perithous, 
and the struggle between the La- 
pithse and the Centaurs after the 
feast. 

69. Hi motus animorum, atque hsec certam- 
ina tantum Pulveris exigui jactu com- 
pressa quiescent — These activities of 
the mind, these contests, so soon are 
buried by a handful of worthless 
dust. 

70. Bal'der, the god of light, peace, 
and day, was the young and beauti- 
ful sou of Odin and Friega, His 
palace, Briedablik (" wide-shin- 
ing"), stood in the Milky Way. He 
was slain by Hoder, the blind old 
god of darkness and night, but was 
restored to life at the general re- 
quest of the gods. — Scandinavian 
Mythology. 

Balder, the beautiful 
God of the summer sun. 

Longfellow, Tegnier' s Death. 

(Sydney Dobell has a poem entitled 
Balder, published in 1854). 

71. Paganini Nicola (1784-1840). Italian 
violinist. 



72. Guy Fawkes, the conspirator, went 
under the name of John Johnstone, 
and pretended to be the servant of 
Mr. Percy (1577-1606). 

73. Bil'lingsgate (3 syL). Beling was a 
friend of " Brennus" the Gaul, who 
owned a wharf called Beling's-gate. 
Geoffrey of Monmouth derives the 
word from Belin.a mythical king 
of the ancient Britons, who" built a 
gate there, b. c 400. '' 

74. D Quadrature, meaning the rela- 
tive position of two heavenly bodies 
that are 90° apart when viewed from 
the earth. 3 symbol for Saturn. 

9 symbol for Venus. 

75. Philemon. A Greek Grammarian 
who lived between 600 and 700 a. d. 
Author of a Lexicon Technologicon, 
part of which is still extant. 

76. Domus Naturse (Nature's House) nil 
dcest nisi clnvis (nothing is wanting 
but the key). 

77. Cressy (Crecy). Town of France 
famous for a battle won by the Eng- 
lish over the French, Aug. 26, 1346. 

Poictiers (Poitiers). Town in 
France where the English under the 
Black Prince defeated the French 
under king John. Najara (Najera). 
Town in Northern Spain, noted for a 
battle fought April 3, 1367, by Peter 
the Cruel and his brother Henry. 

78. Omne ignotam pro magnifico (un- 
known things are esteemed wonder- 
ful). 

79. Acade'mus, an Attic hero, whose 
garden was selected by Plato for the 
place of his lectures. Hence his dis- 
ciples were called the "Academic 
sect." 

The green retreats of Academus. 
Akenside, Pleasures of Imaginatiott, i. 

Porch {The). The Stoics were so 
called, because their founder gave 
his lectures in the Athenian ^iua or 
porch called " Poe'cile." 

The successors of Socrates formed . . The 
Academy, the Porch, the Garden. — Professor 
Seeley, Ecce Homo. 

80. Flodden Field. Flodden, name of a 
hill in Northumberland, England, 
around whose base was fought the 
famous battle of Flodden Field, 
Sept. 9, 1513, between the English and 
the Scotch. See Scott's " Marmion," 
last canto. 

81. Membrino's Helmet. A helmet of 
pure gold which was said to render 
the wearer invisible. Also see "Don 
Quixote," Book I, Chapter 2. 

82. Prince Hohenhohe, Alexander Leo- 
pold, 1794-1849. 

33. Lilv, William (1466-1523), one of the 
introducers of a knowledge of Greek 
into Eugland and first head master 
of St. Paul's school. His most fa- 
mous work is the old Eton Latin 
Grammar. 1460-1519. 



440 



THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 



84. Udals. Nicholas Udal (1505-1556), 
head master of Eton, a classical 
scholar, a translator of Terrence and 
Erasmus, and author of the earliest 
extant regular comedy, entitled 
" Ralph Royster Doyster." 

Bushby, Richard (1606-1695), head 
master of Westminster school, and 
author of Greek and Latin Gram- 
mars. He was buried in Westminster 
Abbey, where his effigy still stands. 

Bowyers. Usher of the black rod in 
the court of Queen Elizabeth. See 
Sir Walter Scott in Keuilworth. 

Parrs. Parr Samuel (1747-1825), an 
English teacher and author, head 
assistant of Harrow school. 

85. Colet, John, dean of St. Paul's and 
founder of a school of that name. 
He was the chief promoter of the 
" new learning " and in a way of the 
Reformation. He appointed Wil- 
liam Lily first high-master of St. 
Paul's school in 1510. 

86. Sir Joshua Reynolds, (1723-1792), an 
English portrait painter, a man of 
urbane and courteous manner and 



wide general culture. He was the 
first president of the Royal Acad- 
emy. He wrote several works on 
the art of painting. 

87. Alcibiades (450 to 404 B. c. ), an 
Athenian general, the ward of Peri- 
cles and a pupil of Socrates. 

88. Cordery, Mathurin Cordier, (1478- 
1564). He had great tact and liking 
in teaching children. His "Collo- 
quia "was his most famous book and 
was used in the schools for three 
centuries. He taught the cele- 
brated Calvin. 

89. Erasmus, Desederius (1467-1536), a 
Dutch scholar and theologian and a 
friend of Colet. He devised a method 
of pronouncing Greek. 

90. Jean Jacques — Jean Jacques (Rous- 
seau), See The Teacher IN Litera- 
ture (First Series), pp. 36-48. 

91. "Sandford and Merton," title of a 
tale for boys by Thomas Day, writ- 
ten about 1783-89. 



TOPICAL SUGGESTIONS 

ARRANGED FOR MONTHLY STUDIES. 



Studies for the First Month. 

THE TEACHER AND HIS SPECIAL QUALIFICATIONS. 

I. The Teacher, (pp. 13-17.) 

1. A despised profession, but not altogether unenviable. 

2. Patrons less appreciative than pupils. 

3. The teacher's authority autocratic. 

4. Pupils naturall}' respect and trust teachers. 

5. Pupils view defects charitably. 

G. The teacher's and the minister's influence compared. 

7. Moral influence involved in teaching. 

8. The relation and catholicity of education and rehgion. 

9. The teacher's calling both useful and sacred. 
10. The teacher's work dignifies his personality. 

n. The Motives Determining the Teacher's Choice, (pp. 
18-25.) 

1. Some become teachers by chance or from necessity. 

2. Domestic calamities influence others. 

3. Self-sacrifice on account of dependent ones as a motive. 

4. The life of an usher or an assistant. 

5. Boys naturally thoughtless but not malicious. 

6. Routine may not be drudgery, if one is in earnest. 

7. The nerve needed to command a school. 

8. Sympathy is born of aflSietion. 

9. The dignity conferred by a purpose to do good. [tors. 
10. To an awakened mind trivial matters become potent fac- 

III. The Teacher's DiflBculties and Vexations, (pp. 25-35.) 

1. Fretting about social position. 

2. Seeking honor through teacher's associations. 

3. Teachers compare favorably with men of other professions. 

4. Universal knowledge not a sine qua non. 

5. Hard work and inadequate compensation. 

(441) 



442 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

6. Educational facilities too cheap to be fully appreciated. 

7. Improper interferences of parents. 

8. The importance of dress and address. 

9. The annoyance of nicknames. 

10. Chagrin from mistakes in punishing pupils. 
IV. Dangers to which Teachers are Exposed, (pp. 35-39.) 

1. Personal vanity is a fruitful source of danger. 

2. The kindly respect of pupils may make teachers arrogant. 

3. The tendency to become dictatorial and peevish. 

4. The daily routine nourishes the habit of fault-finding. 

5. The constant strain produces nervousness and depression. 

6. The temptation to use stimulants and narcotics. 

7. Reaction should be sought through air and light. 

8. Watchfulness necessary to prevent pride and harshness. 

9. Natural weakness overcome only by unremitting effort. 
10. The example of the Great Teacher is an overcoming power. 



Studies for the Second Month. 

V. The Dignity and Worth of the Teacher's "Work. 

1. Tlie teachers of one generation form the character of tlie 
next. 

2. The teacher stin.ulates virtue and reproves sin. [late. 

3. Tea('hers are practical statesmen able to organize and legis- 

4. Teachers are skilled tacticians as well as brave soldiers. 

5. Teachers should be able lawyers and just judges. 

6. Teachers should |)Ossess medical knowledge. 

7. Teachers should be expert readers of character. 

8. Tact is more conducive to success than mere knowledge. 

9. The softening influence of contact with children. 

10. The elevating and improving power of a generous spirit. 

VI. Day-Dreams of Teachers, (pp. 45-49.) 

1. A home amid multiplied domestic joys. 

2. The dream of our unrealized dreams. 

3. The model school in far-off Utopia. 

4. The dream of efforts fully appreciated. 

5. The fruition of our labors in a peaceful hereafter. 

VII. The Rivalries and Envyings of Teachers, (pp. 49-59. J 

1. Teachers prone to be uncharitable towards one another. 

2. The glory and awful dignity of head masters. 

3. The popular and obsequious assistant. 

4. The genial heads of private schools. 



TOPICAL SUGGESTIONS. 443 

5. Ushers in English private schools. 

6. The stiff and inflexible teacher. 

7. The dandified teacher. 

8. The genius who is an easy-going teacher. 

9. The foreign teacher with iron-clad theories. 

10. The ever-watchful, heaven-born teacher. 

11. The high-minded, soaring teacher. 

12. The ideal teacher. 

VIII. ForeshadoTvings of Character, (pp. 60-71.) 

1. The club and the banquet. 

2. What teachers ought to be. 

3 . Surprises in after life. 

4. Robert Goodboy, painfullj^ good, becomes schismatic. 

5. Frank Favorite, open-hearted but reckless. 

6. John Standfast, sterling and spirited. 

7. Charley Tender, petted but exquisite. 

8. Cynical Dick becomes a celebrated author and critic, 

9. Pompous Tom, a local politician. 

10. Fighting Harry, the dauntless soldier. 
IX. The Means of Correction, (pp. 71-80.) 

1. Description of "Lion, " or the tawse. 

2. The manner of using Lion. 

3. The necessity for correction. 

4. The fruitfulness of corporal punishment. 

5. Flogging more humane than tasks, etc. 

6. Lion is effective, because of promptness. 

7. The old Lion and the new one. 

8. " Lion should devour bad men as well." 

9. Persons who declaim against flogging. 
10. " Spare the rod and spoil the child." 



Studies for the Third Month. 

X. Disciplinarians, (pp. 81-98.) 

1. Mistakes parents make relative to school discipline, [school. 

2. DiflSculties of parents disciplining their own children in 

3. The hangers-on of the teaching profession. [teacJi. 

4. More than mere scholastic qualifications are needful to 

5. The pupil's opinion of a new teacher. [time. 

6. The conflict between pupils and teachers until Dr. Arnold's 

7. Modern teachers are in sympathy with their pupils. 

8. The old-time brutal master. 



444 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE, 

9. The snarling master. 

10. The stupid master. 

11. The easy-going, tender-hearted master. 

12. The " new-light " master. 

13. The ideal schoolmaster. 

14. IMcture of a true teacher. 

POETICAL PICTURES. 

1. Goldsmith's Village Schoolmaster, (pp. 99-101.) 

2. Kirke White's Village Schoolmistress, (pp. 101-103.) 

3. Whittier's Student-Teacher, (pp. 104-106.) 



Studies for the Fourth Month. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CLOTHES. 

I. Inf^incY {Genesis): Nurture. (109-115.) 

1 . The infant coming out of the Unknown. 

2. The umbrageous man's-nest provided for his nurture. 

3. The mystery of his heredity. 

4. The infant's first garment is a name. 

5. The early unfolding of the infant's powers. 
II. Childhood (Idyllic): Instruction. (116-123.) 

1. The restful state of childhood. 

2. Becoming conscious of the external world. 

3. Even the swineherd is the hierarch of irrational animals. 

4. Genius not imparted by instruction. 

5. The educative influences of environment. 

6. Even swallows teach man to combine with man. 

7. The strict enforcement of the law of obedience. 

8. A knowledge of truth is paramount. 
III. Youth (Pedagogy): Culture. (124-138.) 

1. The child manifests only his passive side. 

2. The youth begins to handle tools. 

3. His first tools are his text-books. 

4. The rivulet related to the ocean. 

5. The youth becoming conscious of his rights. 

6. The unfitness of some branches of study. 

7. Strength arising from life's calamities. 

8. The statistics of imposture. 

9. The ebb and flow of opinions. 

10. Culture comes from books with brains to read and eyes to 
see. 



TOPICAL SUGGESTIONS. 445 

Studies for the Fifth Month. 

SCHOOL DREAMS, (pp. 139-146.) 

1. The dream of going to a higher school. 

2. A picture of the grammar teacher. 

3. Reading story books and dreaming about them. 

4. Tricks which boys play on one another. 

5. Foolhardy acts and consequent suffering. 

6. The dream of everlasting friendship. 

7. The dream of future occupation. 

BOROUGH SCHOOLS, (pp. 147-160.) 

1. The widow's infant school — methods of control. 

2. The primary school— learning is labor. 

3. The preparatory school — presages of the future. 

4. Reuben Dixon's school— poverty and patience. 

5. The boarding school for ladies — obnoxious rules. 

6. The boarding school for boys— queer characters. 

7. The student and the college. 

the" country schoolmaster, (pp. 161-172.) 

1. The usefulness and dignity of the country schoolmaster. 

2. The new systems of Lancaster and Bell. 

3. Proposed new system of popular education. 

4. The displacement of old time schoolmasters. 

5. The self-educated schoolmaster. 

6. A schoolmaster's quaint letter. 

7. Old-time schoolmasters the pioneers of civilization. 

8. Wordsworth's "Robert Walker of Cumberland." 



Studies for the Sixth Month. 

SELF-EDUCATION, (pp. 173-217.) 

1. Current educational opinions. 

2. Self-education attainable by all. 

3. The grand acquirement of learning to read. 

4. The forming influence of a taste for reading. 

5. The gTammar school of the parish. 

6. The development of the story-telling power. 

7. The cultivation of the art of composition. 

8. The educative influence of libraries. 

9. The escapades of a band of boys. 



446 THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

10. Toil and hardship will break the insubordinate truant. 
3 ] . The critical stage in a boy's life. 

12. Trivial acts leading to serious consequences. 

13. The development of brawn and courage. 

14. Friendships between boys and men. 

TOPSY'S EDUCATION, (pp. 218-245.) 

1. The New England home and the New England woman. 

2. The repugnant task of educating a heathenish child. 

3. The idiosyncrasies of the Afric child. 

4. The presumption that a child possesses positive knowledge. 

5. The innate tendencies to steal and falsify. 

6. The influence of heredity upon mind and character. 

7. The need of appreciative sympathy between teacher and 

pupil. 

8. A love for humanity is an invincible power. 



Studies for the Seventh Month. 

THE SCHOOL OF FACTS, (pp. 246-287.) 

1. Thomas Gradgrind, a man of facts and realities. 

2. Life with fancy and imagination excluded. 

3. The model lesson given by M'Choakumchild. 

4. The little Gradgrinds desolate amid their cabinets. 

5. Coketown reflecting its educational system. 

6. The clown's daughter and the wondering children. 

7. Statistics — the curse of social and religious life. 

8. A hbrary of dry facts without imaginative literature. 

9. The children in rebellion against a hard system. 

10. The stultifying influence of mechanical methods. 

11. The conversation of the children about stories in books. 

12. Earnest and good without mastering facts. 



Studies for the Eighth Month. 

OLD CHEESEMAN'S SCHOOL, (pp. 288-299.) 

1. The hard fare and overcharges of boarding schools. 

2. Old Cheeseman's midsummer holidays. 

3. His promotion to be second Latin master. 

4. Bob Tartar and his persecuting society. 

5. Old Cheeseman and his inherited fortune. 



TOPICAL SUGGESTIONS. 447 

6. His visit and munificences to the school. 

7. The effect of returning good for evil. 

8. A genuine interest in the pleasures of boyhood. 

THE PICTURE OF AN OLD-TIME TUTOR, (pp. 300-350.) 

1. The ambition and sacrifices of parents. 

2. The young Oxonian astrologer. 

3. Harry Bertram and his mysterious fate. 

4. The calamities of a single day. 

5. Dominie Sampson's unselfish devotion. 

6. The charity of providing congenial and useful employment. 

7. Ijearning is ore, but culture is metal refined. 

8. "Right and might meet on EUangowan's height." 

9. The tutor's pride in his pupils. 

10. Rest and comfort amid cherished objects. 



Studies for the Ninth Month. 

THE IRISH SCHOOLMASTER, (pp. 3.51-361.) 

1. Description of the college of Kilreen. 

2. The pedagogue's surroundings and dress. 

3. Stripes given for punishment, not correction. 

4. Interesting pupils in stories relating to the lessons. 

5. Supplemental occupations a profitable relief to teachers. 

CLAPHAM ACADEMY, (pp. 361-366. 

1. Picture and reminiscences of the school. 

2. New boys pushing out the old ones. 

3. The recreations on the playground. 

4. Vain wishes to live those days over. 

THE CHARITY SCHOOL, (pp. 367-387.) 

1. Jacob Faithful enters the school as No. 63. 

2. The two centers — the master and the matron. 

3. The eccentricities of the master. 

4. Humorous notion of the letter A. 

5. Barnaby Bracegirdle's trick and punishment. 

6. The fight on the plaj^ground. 

7. The spelling lesson leading to rattan. 

8. The master's love and envious comrades. 

9. The malicious plot rebounding upon the instigators. 



448 the teacher in literature. 

Studies for the Tenth Month. 

SCHOOL MEMORIES, (pp. 388-415.) 

1. The dress of the child going away to school. 

2. Sharing a luxury with fellow-travelers. 

3. The treatment received from older boys. 

4. Humorous description of the writing master. 

5. The method of birching and its effect. 
G. Boyish beliefs and superstitions. 

7. Sports and amusements proper to childhood. 

8. ** Over the line" and the unseen detective. 

9. The fear of revolutionary plots. 

10. The Ninevite school and its seven worthies. 

11. An invisible policeman says, "Move on !" 

12. Dreary years at Camelot and Dunodin. 

13. The sixpence which grew into fabulous sums. 

14. Anecdotes about fagging and bullying. 

1 5. Rough games and injured comrades. 

16. A school rebellion and its suppression. 

17. A Hellenist reads the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. 

18. Treadmills that grind no grists. 

THE HOME AND THE SCHOOL, (pp. 416-436.) 

1. The aspects under w^hich the son was born. 

2. The homestead and its furnishings. 

3. A library and the natural choice of books. 

4. A self-taught man and a life devoid of care. 

5. The selection of educational facilities. 
G. Stolen beans, a silver basin and warts. 

7. A patient teacher and an interested pupil. 

8. Over-strictness inconsistent with liberty for development. 

9. School associations and environments. 

10. To avoid cramming, teach essentials and leave details to be ac- 
quired incidentally. 



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